


Oh Such a Spring

by revengeandotherdrugs



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Codependency, Explicit Sexual Content, Growing Up Together, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, I Give Eskel Everything He Wants And Then Take It Away, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, It's all about the YEARNING, Kaer Morhen, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Suicide Attempt, opposite of a slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:53:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28518933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revengeandotherdrugs/pseuds/revengeandotherdrugs
Summary: "If I’m to live without you, let it be hard and bloody...I won’t learn to love you any better this way, but abandoned by happiness I’ll know how much you gave me just by sometimes being around.”— Julio Cortázar (trans. Stephen Kessler)
Relationships: Eskel/Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia
Comments: 32
Kudos: 40





	1. But The Sun Betrayed Me...

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, I read [Tap Tap Tap](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27637459/chapters/67621723) by[LemmingDancer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LemmingDancer/pseuds/LemmingDancer) and went absolutely feral. 
> 
> This turned into a monster of a fic. I will do my best to update regularly but be forewarned my track record with multi-chapter works is... Not Good.
> 
> Title is from the song "Oh Such a Spring" by Fontaines DC which just makes me think of Witchers for some reason.

Down in the orchard, the apple trees are blooming - white blossoms, like snow, standing out against the new leaves, their green so bright he can barely look at them so sensitive are his new eyes. The air smells of grass and baby animals and the heady promise of summer - he swears he can hear the seeds sprouting in the garden, the tang of new life glittering at the back of his throat. It’s spring as Eskel had never experienced it before - an overwhelm so unbearable he wants nothing more than to hide someplace dark and cold. The sun, visible for the first time since mid-autumn, shines as though to make up for lost time, so bright Eskel can hear it, a terrible, constant, ringing in his ears. 

It is as though the world has been made anew, scrubbed clean of the darkness and soot of winter, and brought back to screaming life. Eskel has been brought back to life with it, violently and unwillingly, blinking out of the calm black and white world of winter with his new eyes, his new senses, every sound, every color, every smell as grating as sandpaper on his frayed nerves. He thinks he might be sick with it, the world dizzyingly bright and detailed, every blink a headache-inducing return to this new technicolor reality. 

Two floors below he can hear the younger trainees reciting the list of ingredients for Swallow, above him, in the eves of the roof, a family of sparrows have started building a nest. Beside him Geralt stirs to wakefulness, hissing at the brightness and burying his face into Eskel’s neck to shield himself. 

“ ‘M gonna be sick,” he says, Eskel can feel the ripple of his eyelashes as he blinks blindly against the side of his neck, hear the way he swallows down the nausea, his own stomach roiling in sympathy. 

“I understand why they hold the Trials in the fall now,” Eskel says in reply. They barely need to whisper to hear one another, Eskel wonders, not for the first time, if they could hear each other's thoughts now if they tried hard enough. Outside, the chorus of birds in the treetops is deafening.

Eskel remembers emerging from that mouth of Hell, dragging himself along the ground on his bloodied hands, bowled over by the brightness of the fire, the warmth of the great hall, the overwhelming reek of death and decay and pain that clung to him like a second skin. They’d slept it off, hibernated, minds and bodies reforming under duress, dreaming, in those scant hours when they could, of the memories of pain and burning. They had awoken to a quiet world cushioned by snow, at the time more color and sound than they could bear with their newly heightened senses; every nerve rubbed raw, every synapse burning. With amusement, Eskel imagines that if he had woken on his first day to  _ this  _ his head would have burst. It still halfway feels like it might.

“We’ve missed breakfast,” He says, luxuriating in the soft auburn feathers of Geralt’s hair against his cheek, the sleep-warm scent of him. “And we have training soon” 

Geralt groans, stretching a little breathlessly, his eyes still screwed up against the glare “Cero will make us run the walls if we’re late”

They dress in silence, light armor over woolen underthings, the day still cold despite the sun. 

After the Trials, they had been moved to their own rooms in the west tower of the Keep - proper rooms, the rooms that they would keep throughout their lives and return to each winter. At some point during their long recovery, Geralt had crawled into Eskel’s bed - awoken by a storm or by the nightmares or by the agonizing growing pains of his bones moving and reforming under his skin - and hadn’t left. The bureau held as many of Geralt’s clothes as it did Eskel’s, both of their collections of Gwent decks sat on the little table, at night their boots would rest side by side on the bearskin rug near the door. It was nice, Eskel had to admit, to keep Geralt so close to him. The other boy had always been a comfort, a constant presence in his life. There used to be others, of course: Gwynn and Kato, Finn and Aleix, horrible Mordred who used to tease Geralt for his hair - but they are all gone now, burned alive in that hellish maw, devoured from the inside and whatever was left of them had been buried somewhere in the dark rich earth of the boneyard beyond the walls. They are the last of their cohort now, Eskel and Geralt, a team of two, they only have each other. 

The pass had cleared weeks ago and the castle has come back to itself, alive with the sound of children but empty, still, without the warm presence of their brothers. With the departure of the snow came the resuming of their usual activities - training, studying, hunting - some kind of animalistic desire for movement and exertion overtaking them as the weather warmed. The younger trainees, sun-drunk and giddy, race through the hallways, nearly tripping up the older boys in their youthful haste and inexhaustible need for movement and noise to prove to themselves that yes, they are alive. 

Geralt and Eskel descend to the training yard slowly, hands held over their burning eyes. Over in one corner of the yard a cohort is learning how to sharpen silver - the sound so grating Eskel fears he’ll grind his teeth to nubs before they’re done. Master Cero of the lost eye, one of many instructors of weaponry, chuckles when he sees them. 

“First sun is always the worst. It’ll fade as you find equilibrium” 

“And when, pray tell, might that happen?” Geralt grouses, hanging by the outer wall, reluctant to leave its shadow. 

“When you need it to. Catch” without warning or so much as a glance Cero throws a small silver object at Eskel. New eyes mean new reflexes and time itself seems to slow as Eskel tracks the thing in the air, a spinning disk of blades. He watches it near, as though moving through molasses, his hands, unbidden by his brain, already beginning to cast Quen, the crackle of chaos bristling at the ends of his fingers and making his hair stand on end. The golden shield shivers to life around him just as Geralt appears, silent on his feet, red hair like blood, like first dawn, and plucks the disk out of the air. 

Without an imminent threat, the world resumes its usual pace. 

Geralt, head cocked like a sparrow, tawny eyes laughing, turns to face Eskel, tossing the disk from hand to hand. His smile is crooked, mischievous, nearly brighter than the too-bright sun.

There’s a momentary feeling of fullness in Eskel’s chest, something so ineffable and  _ forbidden _ he feels as though he may be sick. It fades after a moment, leaving him cold for a reason he can’t quite place. 

Cero claps, once, twice, sarcasm written in every scarred line of his face. 

“Well done Geralt, although that was for Eskel. Also, Eskel, I said  _ catch _ not  _ obliterate _ ”

Eskel shrugs a little ruefully at the admonishment - magic came as easy to him as swordplay did now, why parry a strike when you could knock your opponent back twenty paces instead? 

“You’re faster now, one of the many new things you poor younglings will have to contend with this season. It can throw even the most trained swordsman to have the world suddenly start moving at half-speed. Not to mention the added distraction that every other sense is going to start throwing at you. You already know how to fight, now you have to learn to fight  _ well _ ” 

Geralt scoffs as they move into stretches, rolling his golden eyes at the implication that he doesn’t already fight well. 

“You can start with the basics” Cero goes on, ignoring Geralt’s insubordination “Take the paces, practice your figures. Footwork is key. You’re soft from the winter and we need you back in form quickly if you’re going to run the mountain in the fall” 

“I’ll show him  _ soft _ ” Eskel growls in Geralt’s ear as they limber up and move to take their marks in the dirt circle. Geralt giggles softly behind his hand. 

They spar for most of the morning, hand to hand, then with swords and signs, then a free for all with maces, flails, and several different types of glaive. Cero was right, it was a bit like learning how to walk again. With the world running at half-speed every movement the other made was telegraphed well beforehand, which, of course, meant that so were theirs. It was, Eskel began to realize, as much about the feint as it was the follow-through and not getting distracted. Every little thing seemed to catch Eskel’s attention; birds flying overhead, the smell of bread baking deep inside the Keep, the flex of Geralt’s hands on the grips of his shortswords, the little flecks of green in his eyes that caught the light when he blinked just so, the way he bites his lip in concentration while staring Eskel down with the intensity of a bird of prey. Hits land from both sides; nearly one to one with the exception of a particularly furious  _ aard _ cast by Eskel that had sent Geralt spiraling away into a knot of yearlings. They’ve always been each others’ equals in combat, with Geralt having the edge physically and Eskel casting the stronger signs. 

He should have remembered that Geralt has no qualms about fighting dirty. 

They circle around each other, breathing hard, it’s been several hours and even with their increased stamina and speed the exertion is beginning to take its toll. Suddenly, Geralt changes the angle of his glaive, and Eskel is hit full in the face with the blinding sunlight. Hissing in pain and righteous frustration he staggers back, throwing his right arm up to protect his oversensitive eyes, and trips himself up. He lands on his ass with a thump he feels all the way up into his teeth. 

Above him, silhouetted against the brightness of the spinning sky, Geralt’s chuckling face appears, hand extended to help him to his feet. 

_ Oh no _ Eskel thinks, biting his lip to keep from grinning  _ This will not be that easy for you. _

Geralt is pulled off his feet with a grunt, quick reflexes sending him tucking into a roll to avoid landing heavily on Eskel’s head That half moment is enough for Eskel to get the upper hand, gripping Geralt’s arm and flipping his body so he’s kneeling on Geralt’s chest, holding the other boy’s wrists over his head with one hand and a dagger to his throat with the other. 

Geralt is smiling wide enough to split his face; there are freckles blooming on his rosy cheeks from the sun and there’s a streak of grey dirt on his forehead. 

“I surrender, Master Witcher,” he says, letting his head fall back to the ground, smiling, baring his throat even further to Eskel’s knife. His hair has come loose from the tie he usually wears it in and it blooms around his head like the rays of the sun. His eyes glitter up at Eskel in half-a-challenge, like twin coins, his full mouth tilted in a half-smile. 

That massive feeling is back in Eskel’s chest, he feels so full of it he can barely breathe. Unbidden he bends, like a flower towards a light source, to lean his forehead against Geralt’s. They’re both breathing heavy, hot with exertion, the scent of sweat heavy between them. Geralt swallows and Eskel watches the bob of his throat beneath the silver line of the knife with a fascinated heat he can’t quite bring himself to name. Beneath Eskel’s knee, Geralt’s heart is beating at a rabbit’s clip.

Behind them Cero coughs awkwardly into one gloved hand, effectively startling them apart. 

“Take lunch, lads. We’ll reconvene tomorrow for the same. Geralt, your hand-to-hand  _ still _ needs refinement - you overbalance on the back-swing. Eskel try not to rely so heavily on your signs, they won’t always be an option” 

They help each other to their feet. Geralt stretches, groaning as abused muscles come to rest, brushing off the seat of his breaches with gloved hands and sending lose a cloud of dust. They make their way back to the Keep, Geralt throwing an arm over Eskel’s shoulders, easy and comforting, a grounding element. 

The sunlight spills in through the tall windows of the great hall, dripping like honey across the ancient stone walls, the uneven flags of the floor. The main doors have been flung open and the breeze wafts in, bringing with it the scents of melting snow and sun on new grass. Things seem clean, clearer somehow, Eskel’s mind free of the shackles of winter finally taking everything in with the detail it all deserves. 

They’re a little late for lunch and as a result, most of the good food is gone but they settle in to their usual place at the long table for a meal of smoked fish, fresh bread, winter apples, and slices of the soft salty cheese that the littles help make in the dairy when they aren’t being taught how to wrestle. They lean into each other on the long bench, not so much holding each other upright as reminding each other that they are there. It’s nearly second nature to Eskel to eat with his left hand, his right arm smooshed against Geralt’s left, their bodies pressed so close together on the seat it’s impossible to move. 

“I’ve got to meet Vesemir in the library soon,” Says Geralt, conversationally around a mouthful of cheese “He’s doing some research into dragon lineages and wants my help with the archives”. 

“Hmmm” Eskel responds, resting his head on Geralt’s shoulder, chewing meditatively on a crust of bread “I’m helping Matvei teach the yearlings alchemy in a bit but I want to take a bath first. I’ll see you at dinner?” 

Geralt nods, leaning his cheek against the top of Eskel’s head. 

When they part ways at the top of the stairs Eskel notices his right side feels colder than it ever has. 

\--------

That night Eskel lies awake and watches the moonlight make shapes on the ceiling. Down in the boneyard, outside of the walls two foxes bicker over a piece of meat, their human-like screams ghostly in the darkness. 

Inside in the dark Eskel allows himself to fall prey to his racing mind. 

There is a hollow part of Eskel that remembers what it all used to feel like - loss and sadness and even love, sometimes - but it's an abstracted thing, like a phantom limb, and it only aches when he lets it. It’s the pure animal part of him that likes Geralt in his bed, the warmth of another body to dispel the chill, the piney smokey scent of him a comfort in the dark. If he tells himself that lie enough he may believe it someday.

Sometimes, in the quiet, he pokes around the edges of the ragged hole that has been left in him, curious about its breadth. He doesn’t look inside it, not now, half afraid he’d find that the feelings weren’t gone, just buried, half again afraid that he’d find nothing at all just confirmation that he is _ well and truly empty _ . 

Beside him Geralt shuffles in his sleep, balanced on the knife's edge of a nightmare, his face scrunched up with pain and worry. 

An overwhelming tenderness fills the hole inside Eskel, like water rushing into a dry lakebed. In the dark and quiet of the night, he lets himself  _ feel.  _

Geralt’s hair is soft against his fingers as he brushes away the stray locks that have clung to his sweaty forehead. Eskel knows where he goes in these nightmares - where they all go - back to that dark pit in the earth full of ghosts and the reek of old death, back to the burning and the burning and the burning. But they aren’t there anymore. They will never again have to experience their bones breaking and reforming inside of them, the strangely painless rip of their own guts held in the hands of others, those fever dreams after the third day wherein the dead and dying faces of their friends swum in and out of view like ghosts seen through a looking glass. They are safe, they are  _ alive _ , and they have each other. They have always had each other. 

He begins to whisper, softly, of the good times, an attempt to bring Geralt back from the abyssal depths of the memories of their torture as much as it is an attempt to remind himself of what it was like to feel something other than this strangely overwhelming cotton-stuffed emptiness. 

He speaks of stolen picnics on the hillside, sun-warmed honey on fresh bread and Geralt’s twelve-year-old laugh as bright as the sun in the midsummer sky (it was worth the beating for stealing just to hear that laugh). Of tearing out of the baths through the garden in an attempt to hide from the others, an eighteen-set of breaches carried in their arms and Geralt couldn’t keep quiet which made Eskel snort with laughter which led to them getting caught in the process of throwing Mordred’s breaches into the pigpen. That time they tried to bleach the red out of Geralt’s hair with lemon and they both got lemon juice in their eyes, somehow. The enchanted bee, the (very small)  _ igni  _ cast on old Master Aarden’s robes during a solemn lecture, the secret language they’d developed between them over the years made up of small gestures and quirks of the eyebrows that was so developed they had been able to plan whole pranks in silence as children. All of those nights they’d spent curled up together just like this, the sound of each other breathing the only thing reminding them they lived still, despite it all. All of the secret things Eskel used to wish for in those quiet moments that he can’t put words to anymore. 

Their childhood had been one of stolen seconds, little patches of joy carved out from the blood and sweat and tears that were as integral to the Keep as the rocks of its foundation. They’d watched their brothers die, had nearly died themselves, and yet they lived still. They had, through the strange designs of fate, been left to see another day. 

Geralt’s expression evens out into something resembling relaxed, his face alabaster in the moonlight. Eskel tucks his face into the crown of Geralt’s head, breathing the scent of him - juniper and honey and oakmoss, the smell of home, evened and mellowed with sleep at long last - and lets himself fall into an uneasy dream. 

He dreams he’s lost something important but that he doesn’t know what exactly it is he’s lost - and that he runs and runs around the walls of the Keep with an empty hole inside him growing larger by the moment until it threatens to swallow him whole. 


	2. ...By Illuminating Everything

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eskel gets everything he wants. 
> 
> Chapter warning for terribly written smut.  
> This is also the last truly happy chapter of the whole fic. My apologies.

It’s tradition that the oldest cohort goes off on their own for a few days during the summer. It’s training for the Path, the elders reason, it will teach them to sleep rough, to find their own food - it’s their first step out into the world. Eskel decides that the only reason they do it is because they couldn’t run if they tried. They’re full Witchers in all but name; their eyes too gold, their reflexes too fast, their aging too slow to ever be able to hide in human society. Like dogs, they’ve been beaten enough to be loyal, trusted to return simply because they have nowhere else to go. 

They take to the mountains. Not the big mountain, that one is saved for the autumn, but one of the slightly smaller mountains to Kaer Morhen’s east. They spend all day winding through the forest in a vaguely upwards direction, taking their time, savoring the journey as a last gasp of freedom before it’s gone for good.

It’s peaceful in the forest; all early summer shades of ochre and wintergreen, pine needles and damp moss underfoot, the cry of birds in the canopy, the dapple of honeyed daylight fading in and out between the leaves. Eskel lets Geralt take the lead, comfortable to follow the other boy’s seemingly aimless path. They don’t speak much, even when they stop to rest and share swallows from the waterskin. There’s a holy delicacy to the afternoon, a shimmer of possibility that Eskel fears will shatter like eggshells if he so much as opens his mouth. 

The treeline breaks near the highest ridge, onto rock outcroppings along which the path winds precariously bordered by a sheer drop into oblivion, nothing between them and miles of emptiness save a few patches of tenacious scrub and the all-knowing delicacy of the mountain sage. Eskel, weary from carrying the packs so far, is more than ready to flop down on the first available patch of soft ground and stay there, while Geralt, for his part, seems content to keep going, intensity and a desperate need for movement burning like coals behind his eyes. In a single graceful bound Geralt leaps up onto an outcropping above the path, leaning out over miles of empty air, fearless, proud as a ship's figurehead. 

Geralt is twenty to Eskel’s twenty-two, both of them well past their lanky childhood, their development hastened along with mutagens and extensive training, but there’s still something so very _young_ about Geralt. The way he throws his head back when he laughs, the way he blows his wildfire hair out of his eyes, the tiny confused frown he gets when confronted with something he doesn’t understand as though he expects the world to yield all its secrets to him without trouble. Beside him, Eskel feels a million years old, weighed down by the world. 

“I can see the sea from up here!” he exclaims, arms outstretched to the wind. 

“Bullshit you can” Eskel isn’t looking towards the horizon to see if the ocean really is over there, he’s looking at Geralt. The sun warmed sweep of him, balancing on the balls of his feet as though about to take flight. That large unnamable feeling is back in Eskel’s chest and he feels as though he might be sick with the overwhelm. 

“What’s wrong Es?” Geralt asks, turning to face him. Like this he’s haloed in the setting sun, hair ablaze, eyes catching the light like molten gold. He’s a hellbeast, a wild animal, he’s the most beautiful thing Eskel has ever seen. 

“Nothing,” he says but his voice shakes. 

Geralt hops down off the ledge, landing right in Eskel’s personal space, silent as a cat. 

“Am I going too fast for you, old man?” His expression is mischievous as he pokes at Eskel’s chest. 

Eskel scoffs, carefully avoiding meeting Geralt’s eyes and yet pretending he’s not “too slow actually. Old Master Aarden moves faster than you. I’d’ve been up here hours ago without you slowing me down” 

Geralt rolls his eyes and pushes past him, jostling their shoulders together as he passes. 

They retreat back to the relative windbreak offered by the treeline to camp; the evening is warm enough but the mountain wind is vicious at the best of times. Eskel sets up their bedrolls and starts on dinner while Geralt gathers firewood. It’s quiet, companionable, as the whole day had been. In the treetops, there's the rustling of birds settling down for the night.

They share a meal of tea, cheese, and brown bread, neither of them feeling up for hunting in the darkness. This is only a test anyway, a vacation of sorts, why leave the warm circle of the fire just to go traipsing about in the woods again?

Geralt throws another log on the fire and retreats back to his place beside Eskel, drawing his knees up and resting his chin on them. There’s a distance between them that hadn’t been there before, both physical and mental, an empty space crackling with possibility. Eskel isn’t sure whether to lean into it or let the emptiness alone. 

Through the gaps in the branches, Eskel can see the stars, glittering crystalline points of brightness against the deep blue velvet of the sky. He thinks about distances and leaving, oddly comforted by the idea of the sameness of the heavens. No matter how far he wanders the stars will always look the same. 

“This is the farthest away I’ve ever been from…” what was the right word for Kaer Morhen? Prison? Hell? Safety? Pain? Home? It was none of those things and yet it was all of them. 

“I know,” Geralt says, eyebrows knitting together at the realization “I wonder what it will be like - on the Path”

“Lonely, I expect,” Eskel replies, attempting to swallow around the sudden lump in his throat. “Lonely and gross, lots of monster guts” The thought of only seeing Geralt in the winter is nearly unbearable. They haven’t been apart for longer than several hours in the whole course of their lives (or at least the only part of their lives that matter now). They’ve fought together, cried together, been through the trials together. They are bound by fate and circumstance and juvenile devotion. Eskel wonders if the feelings will fade with time and distance or if he will have to go through the rest of his life choking on the things he wishes he could say to Geralt, the things he wishes they could have. 

“I wonder,” Says Geralt after a moment “How much we don’t know - about life I mean. I know our whole purpose is to walk the Path and fight monsters and save humankind yada yada yada - but I wonder what we’re missing” 

Eskel tries to scoff but it comes out more like a choke. 

“You mean like women?” they remembered their mothers of course, and knew the stories that the older Witchers brought home about whores they had bedded and sorceresses they’d fallen (hopelessly) in love with on their way. But Eskel found it difficult to imagine, much less desire (even in the abstract) the soft curves and wet cunt the others described. He honestly thought he’d visit the first brothel that would serve him for the experience and then probably never touch a woman again. 

“I guess women,” says Geralt “but also boats, a desert, a city with so many people living in it”

“Cities will be rather like Kaer Morhen in the winter I expect,” Eskel says, trying to sound sage about the whole thing “lots of people living on top of each other with nowhere to go” 

“But if we know about those things” Geralt goes on “There have to be other things we don’t know about at all. Animals maybe, or songs” He trails off, clearly thinking of music. 

“It will be nice to be free” he continues, gazing into the fire “figure out who we are now for ourselves - what pleases us” 

“I don’t think Witchers are ever really free,” Eskel says “We’ll always be one misstep away from monsters” 

Geralt meets his eyes sidelong, his face set. In the firelight the planes and angles are highlighted, he looks like something carved from marble. 

“You could never be a monster to me, Es” 

The words settle on Eskel’s shoulders like a warm blanket, overwhelmed with almost painful gratefulness. No matter who they become or what they have to do there will always be someone who knows them, who sees them for who they truly are.

“I’ll miss you,” He says, at last, trying to pour all the emotion he can into the quiet admission - the longing of years, how much Geralt means to him. Every patched wound, every set bone, every night spent drying each others’ tears, every soothed muscle ache, every little spark of light in the cold uncaring darkness of their childhood. Eskel doesn’t rightly know what he’ll do without the other boy, it has only been Geralt for so long Eskel doesn’t think there will ever be another. 

“I can’t imagine…” he trails off. A log breaks, sending sparks up into the sky, little fireflies that flicker and die in the vacuum of the darkness, “Would you…” he starts but doesn’t know where he was going with it because Geralt’s face is so close suddenly, the heat of his body prickling with nearness. 

There’s a question in his golden eyes, a wish written in the tilt of his mouth.

Geralt kisses him. 

Eskel goes willingly, more than willingly - he _melts_ under the soft pressure of Geralt’s mouth, the warmth and nearness of him. He thinks, suddenly and desperately, that he’s going to break under the kiss, _because_ of it, he has the distinct image of his soul spiraling out of him like a spool of thread thrown down the stairs, an irreversible coming undone. 

He kisses Geralt back. 

It’s awkward, or should be, both of them utterly unpracticed as they are but the newness carries it; the sharp accidental bite of Geralt’s teeth against his lip, the unsure addition of a tongue that has Eskel moaning unbidden into that electrified space between them. 

They tumble back against the ground, hands in each others’ hair, kissing as though drowning. Somehow Eskel ends up with a lapful of Geralt, clutching at his firm shoulders in some kind of unnamable desperation, greedy for the taste of his mouth. 

Geralt moans as Eskel bites at his bottom lip. The tang of blood, hot and bright, blossoms between them and Eskel licks at it, tasting it. The flavor bursts over his tongue, sending a spark of lightning down his spine. He feels his cock twitch, arousal like a wave running through him. There is a moment of embarrassment before Geralt rocks down against him, pressing his own hard cock against Eskel's stomach, his tongue in Eskel's mouth, his hands scrabbling at his back. 

They pull apart after a long moment, gasping for air, holding each other close. Their noses bump and Eskel has the overwhelming desire to laugh, or maybe cry he isn't quite sure. Geralt's golden eyes blink back at him, twin suns in the dimness. 

"Es…" he murmurs, his lips are spit-shiny, glowing cherry red in the firelight. His hair has leaves in it. He's the most incredible thing Eskel has ever seen. "My gods...wanted to do that for so long" 

It's as though Geralt can't stop moving, rocking his hips in short gasping jerks, dragging the warm weight of him along Eskel's cock, hard and straining in his breaches. Eskel gathers him close, wrapping his arms around Geralt's trim waist, and meets Geralt's next thrust with one of his own. 

They both gasp at the sensation, Geralt's eyes falling closed as he presses his lips to Eskel's again. 

"Yes" he murmurs "yes…" 

Suddenly Eskel is overwhelmed with the need to _taste_. It’s a primal urge, a wolfish one, that has Eskel nuzzling into the side of Geralt’s neck. His skin tastes of salt and sweat and the sweet-water taste of his arousal that floods his system like a drug. 

Geralt pulls back after a moment. His eyes are blown with lust and there’s a bitten-bruise slowly fading against the soft pale skin of his throat. Like a flower to the sun Eskel attempts to follow him, chase that beautiful mouth like its air, but Geralt lays a gentle hand on his cheek to still him. 

“I want to -” he begins then realizes he doesn’t quite know what he wants and frowns, his thumb tracing gentle circles beneath Eskel’s eye. 

“Stop me if you don’t want this,” he says at last and brings their mouths together again. 

Eskel could cry with how badly he _does_ want it. He settles for tangling his hands in Geralt’s hair instead even as Geralt strips him of his shirt and presses him back onto their bedrolls with only the hot weight of his mouth against his throat and the heavy press of his hand against his cock.

Long fingers scrabble at the ties of his breaches, Geralt's warm sword-callused hand around his cock. He nearly yelps at the sensation, bucking helplessly into the tight grasp of Geralt's palm. 

“Oh you beautiful thing” Geralt whispers against his lips and Eskel has a panicked moment to think that Geralt must have made some mistake because he has been called many things in his life but _beautiful_ has never been one of them. But then Geralt is biting at his collarbone and Eskel stops being able to think at all. 

Geralt’s mouth down Eskel’s body is an electric shiver, wet kisses offset by the barest hint of teeth. He follows down Eskel’s body; breastbone to a nipple, the jut of his ribcage to his hip bone. There’s a bare breath of inaction before Geralt pulls Eskel’s cock into his mouth. He curses aloud at the feeling - hot and wet and all-encompassing - back nearly lifting off the ground at the feeling and the sight of Geralt between his legs, eyes glowing up at him in the dark. He is a predator and Eskel is utterly at his mercy. Geralt is exploratory in his ministrations, dragging the soft pad of his tongue over the head several times just to taste, before diving in and taking in as much of Eskel as he can, gagging with it and pulling back, his lips sloppy with spit and precum. 

Eskel _has_ to kiss him. 

Geralt tastes of _Eskel_ and he growls as their combined taste washes over his tongue. He pulls on Geralt’s hair with one hand causing the other boy to gasp and open his mouth wider for his tongue while working desperately at the tie of Geralt’s breaches with the other. Geralt’s cock is hard and leaking in his hand, and Eskel’s mouth waters at the feel of it, the sound of bitten off pleasure Geralt makes at the first touch of his hand. He begins to jerk him off, slowly, torturously, attempting to memorize every vein and tendon with touch alone. Geralt moans and writhes in his arms, trying to get something more substantial to rut against. He bites at his lip, reopening the scab and Eskel is powerless to stop from licking into his mouth, swallowing the taste and Geralt’s breathy moans in kind. 

He’s imagined this, time and again, on the rare nights he was left alone in his bed he would take his cock in hand and imagine Geralt’s soft mouth, his strong thighs, the juniper and honey scent of him as familiar as his own face in a mirror. Geralt, his brother, his love, his best friend. No fantasy compared. He’s spent years denying himself this and suddenly presented with it he doesn’t know how he will be able to hold himself back. 

Geralt solves that problem for him by expertly flipping their positions back again. Seated astride his hips there is something wild about Geralt - leaves in his hair, blood on his lips, his cock jutting out from his body, his eyes burning like coals. Eskel takes him in hand, relishing the way Geralt’s cock twitches under his hand. After a moment however Geralt shakes his head and moves slightly lower, taking Eskel’s cock to rub against his own from between the soft pressure of his thighs. 

Eskel groans head thrown back into the dirt. Geralt’s weight above him (on him, around him) the most perfect friction. Like a starving man presented with a banquet he can't stop touching Geralt - his strong thighs lightly furred with coarse hair, the solid plane of his stomach pale as milk in the darkness, the beautiful heft of his cock, blood-hot and hard between them. Eskel wants it in his mouth. He wants to worship him, lick and kiss and suck every beautiful, resilient, familiar part of him. Geralt's body is a survivor's body and Eskel wants to worship at the altar of that strength. 

“I only want you” Eskel admits, almost delirious with the feeling of both their hands on their cocks, the tight heat of their nearness like a spring coiled between them, ready to explode, “I’ve only ever wanted you” 

_Just for now. Just this once._ He tells himself as he watches Geralt's eyes grow wide with the admission only to shudder and cast his head back in ecstasy, mouth open on a silent wail as he cums in hot streaks over Eskel’s chest, his hands, his cock. That alone is enough to have him careening over the edge, muffling his cries into Geralt’s forearm, washed through with pleasure on the verge of pain. _Never again._

_\--------_

“We can’t…” he says afterward, very quietly. His fingers are tangled in Geralt’s hair, feeling the warm weight of his head on his chest, the slow pulse of blood at his temple as though he’ll never get to feel it again “We can’t have this”

“Who says?” there’s that youngness, that frown at the unfairness of the world as though he’s disappointed in it, even after all this time and everything that’s happened. 

“Everyone” _A Witcher’s Life is a Lone Life._ That mantra had been drilled into them as children, repeated over and over throughout their growing up. _Witchers Can Not Love._

“”Witchers cannot love”” Geralt recites as though reading his thoughts, lifting himself up on one elbow so they’re eye level with one another. In the twilit gloom, his eyes seem to glow “But aren’t we still human, despite it all?”

He kisses Eskel then, deep and lingering and so very tender that Eskel thinks his heart might break if he still had one. 

Geralt breaks away to add more wood to the fire. Like this he resembles a young god more than a man; naked skin bloody in the firelight, every angle of lean muscle drawn in sharp relief. Eskel finds himself entranced by the dips of muscle in his shoulders, the soft, shadowed place where ass meets thigh.

“Witchers don’t have to be alone on the Path,” Geralt says, staring into the dancing flames of the fire “I’ve been reading about it when I help Vesemir in the library. In the early days Witchers traveled in groups, sometimes as many as five at a time like bands of knights. Maybe we could…” he trails off, swallowing around a lump in his throat “Maybe we could walk the Path together, maybe we could be the first ones in memory to do it” 

Eskel feels as though the earth is sliding out from under him. Suddenly he _wants._

He pulls Geralt back to him, gathers him close, and kisses him in a way he hopes conveys everything he’s feeling. The heady weight of possibility, the fantasy future unspooling like a road beneath his feet. He’s drunk on kisses, and Geralt’s body, on a future so near he aches with wanting. 

They sleep like that, pillowed on their bedrolls, warmed by the fire and the balmy night, skin on skin, holding each other close. 

_\-------_

The next day they tarry on the mountain until the sun begins its downward sweep, afraid that this new and fragile thing they’ve brought to life between them will break or disappear again as soon as they’re back within the cold comfort of Kaer Morhen. Eskel doesn’t want to delude himself - this was a one-off- a last hurrah out of the prying eyes of their Masters. 

He tries not to be too hurt, to long too much. He’d had his moment of heaven - that was more than he’d ever dreamed of. In spite of himself, he’s sullen on the descent, imagining a coldness has suddenly sprung up between them in the light of day. Geralt, for his part, seems locked inside his own head, chewing on his bottom lip in consternation as though mulling over a particularly upsetting problem. The dramatic part of Eskel thinks he’s trying to come up with ways to let him down gently. 

It’s been dark for several hours by the time they make it off the foothills, linking up with a more well-trodden path along the river bank toward the keep. There’s a subtle sadness that blooms in Eskel at the sight of the old stone walls up ahead, the return to the prison of a routine. Whether witchers possess innate wanderlust is a topic of debate but for the moment the thought of being _inside_ grated. He felt as though something had broken loose inside him, some odd extremity of his soul grown larger than his old life could bear - as though he was trying to put himself back into a box in which he no longer fit.

Suddenly, Geralt grabs his shoulders, spinning him around and pinning him against a tree. They are well within sight of the castle here, the bark of the tree rough against Eskel’s back. Geralt kisses him suitably senseless, his lips warm and welcome on his. 

“I’ll figure it out for us,” He says, urgently against Eskel’s mouth, as though he really means it “I’ll do research, construct precedent, read the old laws, I won’t let them tear us apart” 

Shocked, Eskel can only gape at him, fish-like. All-day he’d been torturing himself with the thought that it was all over, meanwhile, Geralt had simply been working out how to begin it.

"You always were the smarter of us," he says, at last, kissing Geralt gently, reveling in the satisfied sigh the other lets out at the contact. 

“C’mon you moody bastard,” Geralt says, taking his hand and pulling him upright “As much as I like the great outdoors I want to sleep in a real bed tonight - or what’s left of it.” 

Making a half-hearted play at reluctance just to feel the pressure of Geralt’s strong hand in his, Eskel follows Geralt home. 

The keep is silent, most residents asleep or in bed, but the side door spelled for just this reason, opens silently at their approach. They dart across the courtyard, giggling like boys half their age, something about the combination of the late hour, the forbidden-ness of their trespass, and the heat of their joined hands making the darkness of the night glitter. 

They nearly run into Vesemir in their mad rush into the great hall. The older witcher is, as is his wont, reading by the light of the heath despite the late hour, a half-full glass of white gull sitting on the table beside him. He looks up, nonplussed, at their obnoxious entrance, expression softening into something near fondness at the sight of them. His hair is pulled back into a tail at the back of his head and like this Eskel can see the beginnings of streaks of grey at his temples. 

“We were about to send out a search party,” He says dryly, taking a sip of his drink. “To bed both of you, just because you're sneaking in late doesn't mean that the animals will feed themselves tomorrow morning."

The older witcher tilts his head as he catches sight of their joined hands. The wheels turn behind his eyes as he looks between them, no doubt filling in the events of the climb in their entirety. Eskel’s ears grow hot with shame and he makes to pull his hand away but Geralt holds firm, a challenge in the set of his jaw as though daring the older witcher to say something. 

Vesemir simply grunts and returns to his book, waving them away with a scarred hand. Geralt all but drags them from the main hall, his hand hot in Eskel's and a volatile frown between his eyebrows. 

“Be careful, lads” 

Eskel turns. Vesemir has put down his book again and is watching them. He looks tired, the scars on his face catching the firelight, a look of pity in his eyes. 


	3. Into The Woods

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I do the mages dirty. Sorry not sorry.

The weeks that follow are the happiest Eskel has ever been. Nothing has changed and yet everything has changed. He still wakes with Geralt in his bed but now he's free to kiss him, to watch the flutter of his eyelashes as he comes awake under the gentle pressure of Eskel's lips. If they're early enough he'll take Geralt into his mouth, wring a shaking orgasm from him, still half asleep and pliant. They lie in bed afterwards, listening to breakfast be served and then cleared away in the great hall, content just to listen to each other breathe. 

They don't talk about the future, about what will happen to them in the spring. That future exists on the other side of winter, on the other side of the mountain. Their whole lives they have been trained to take life in moments, little sips of joy enough to carry them through the darkness. For now, they are content just to exist with each other, to luxuriate in the heat of the summer sun and the warmth and nearness of another body.

Geralt learns just where to kiss him to make him shake apart, his analytical mind cataloging the topography of Eskel's body as thoroughly as he does everything. For his part, he spends his time learning by heart the different bitten sounds Geralt makes when he touches him, the specific constellation of freckles across his broad shoulders, how his lips taste at different times of the day; dusty first thing in the morning, like honey wine in the slow light of the afternoon.

They still rib each other and tease and beat each other senseless during training but afterwards Eskel hauls Geralt into the armory and they rut against each other like dogs. The smell of sweat and sex rolling between them in heady waves. They lie together in the gold grass after supper, watching the sun sink slowly behind the mountains, listening to the honey-drunk hum of the bees in the flowers, the warm whisper of the wind in the trees. It’s heaven, or near enough.

They’ve always been close, always been tactile - all the boys at Kaer Morhen are - sometimes the only thing that can prove that you’re truly alive is the strength of another body to lean against, the barest kind touch the brightest point in a life of pain. But the older Masters sometimes watch them now, frowns inscribed in the furrows between their bushy eyebrows. Eskel wonders if Vesemir told or if it was truly that obvious that something had changed between them if the way they touch each other is truly any different from how it always had been. 

"Let them watch" Geralt whispers at dinner one night, following Eskel's gaze to the high table where two of the masters are seated, casting unreadable glances their way. "Old perverts". 

A kernel of unease takes root in Eskel's stomach anyway. Something is coming and he's not sure what it is; Vesemir's cryptic warning never far from the back of his mind.

A Witcher’s lot in life is a lonely one, Eskel knows, but not for the first time he wonders  _ why _ . Geralt is the sun his planet orbits around, has been for nearly twelve years. Eskel wonders why the Witchers would go to so much trouble to build a pack, a family, only to exile their children from it, from each other. Eskel doesn’t work better alone, he works better with Geralt. They fight better with the other watching their back fitting together like two pieces of a puzzle. They have never been apart from one another and to throw them each out into the world alone feels like vivisection, a forcible separation of living flesh that might start a hemorrhage that cannot be stopped. 

Geralt’s words echo back to him: maybe _ we could walk the Path together, maybe we’ll be the first Witchers to ever do it in memory.  _ Maybe they could.  __ Suddenly, Eskel sees his life spread out like a road in front of him; Walking the Path with Geralt, slaying monsters side by side their blades like twin streaks of silver in the darkness. The meanness of men wouldn’t touch them, no monster either, not while they have each other. He thinks of kissing him while still spattered with monster gore, kissing him in the river where they’d stop to bathe, kissing him on the shores of the farthest sea. They’d retire together, he decides - not to Kaer Morhen to train others like them, not to a life of harming children for some unattainable greater good - but to the coast, down south where it’s warm; to the stretches of unmarred beach and wilderness that Eskel remembers from his childhood. Geralt would always have his summer freckles there, even as their hair grew white with age. They’d raise chickens and goats and love each other as they lived out their twilight years. They’d live a long life, Eskel decides, a life of holding and being held, loving and being loved. He hurts with wanting.

“I can hear you thinking” Geralt mumbles against his collarbone, half asleep. 

Eskel hums in reply, pressing a soft kiss to the crown of Geralt’s copper head. 

_ Promise me you won’t go where I can’t follow _ he pleads, silent, like a prayer. Outside the crickets chirp in the garden and far away on the other side of the mountain, a lone wolf howls his heartbreak to the stars.

\--------

Geralt notices the mages first, pausing with a spoonful of his dinner halfway to his mouth, his hand resting on Eskel’s thigh curling into a vice, sharp nails digging into muscle hard enough to bruise. 

“Ow! gods Geralt what…?” 

He sees them then, as though appearing out of nowhere, silent and all-knowing, seemingly resolved out of nothing but the shadows behind the door. The mages are tall and thin as reeds, twin moon faces, bald and slightly greasy, glowing from the depths of their dark hoods. Their eyes, blank white and pupil-less like peeled boiled eggs, scan the hall, the scent of old death and present decay rolling off them like smoke. Dread and leftover fear shoots through him like lightning, raising carefully buried memories to the surface of his mind: That blank gaze on his body, on the  _ inside _ of his body, those long-fingered hands twisting and rummaging about on the inside of him. The whispered incantations, the breaking of bones, his brothers screaming as they died. 

Silence settles over the great hall like a cloud. The masters look uneasy and the younger boys pick up on the discomfort and begin to titter and fidget nervously. The Mages’ presence seems to stifle and absorb - all sunlight faded, all sound muffled, the lavender-brightness of the early evening becoming dangerous, cold enough to cut.

“Don’t worry” He whispers to Geralt, partially to convince himself, “They’re not here for us” 

But they seem to be watching them, inasmuch as their lidless, pupil-less eyes can  _ watch.  _ They are more like cave-dwelling reptiles than men, blinded by their own quest for power, slithering in and out of the underbelly of nightmares looking for ways to twist the human body into something stronger, more beautiful, perhaps, for having been broken so thoroughly the first time. 

Something isn’t right. It’s nearly a week from midsummer and the Trial of Grasses never takes place before the first harvest. The unease in Eskel’s stomach begins to grow roots, twisted gnarled things that wrap around his lungs and make it difficult to breathe. 

Rennes, patriarch of the Wolf School, sweeps away from the high table with the gravitas of an aged king - there’s thunder in his expression, barely contained anger in the set of his thick brows. He bows to the mages ceremonially but makes no further move to welcome them, clearly as surprised as everyone else by their sudden appearance. 

The mages say something, their lipless mouths moving in a not quite human approximation of speech. It’s too quiet to make out what they say but the glance Rennes tosses their way chills Eskel to the bone.

Rennes replies softly but forcefully, Eskel imagines if he had hackles they’d be raised, something wolfish in the cut of his mountainous shoulders. Something else is said, several other things, to which Rennes replies with the same cold immovable fury. At last, the old witcher’s shoulders sink imperceptibly and he nods, turning to make his way through the rows of tables towards them. 

Geralt’s hand is crushing his, the weight of his body against his own grounding and terrifying all at once. Suddenly, Eskel is very aware of how visible they are, how close to one another. He wonders if everything is written plainly on his face, on his body, in the depths of his eyes. He thinks of what he has and what he stands to lose and nearly goes blind with it. 

“Geralt, with me” Rennes orders, his low voice leaving no room for argument. 

With a squeeze of his hand, Geralt stands, obedient as a kicked dog, looking uneasily between Rennes, the mages, and Eskel who moves to stand with him - some protective instinct balking at the idea of letting Geralt go off with the mages alone. Just as quickly as he rises he is held back with a strong hand on his shoulder, pushed back into his seat. 

“A Witcher’s life is a lone one” Cero hisses into his ear, even as ever, although there’s an ominous pang of sympathy under it all “It’s best that you remember that” his hand on the back of Eskel’s neck is heavy, sword-callused and scarred, the weight of the world settling over him, making it impossible to move. 

Geralt looks back, once, as he is led from the room, catching Eskel’s eyes over the heads of their comrades.  _ I’ll be okay _ he mouths, but there’s something rather like fear glittering in the depths of his amber eyes. 

\--------

When he returns to his room with the dark, the long shadows of the evening mirroring the shadows in his mind, he finds Geralt there waiting for him. The relief that swamps him at the sight, Geralt safe and whole, lounging in full armor on the bed reading a book of Elvish poetry, nearly causes Eskel’s knees to give out from under him. There’s a worried pinch between his eyebrows that smoothes away the moment Eskel enters the room, a fond smile in its place. 

“That’s certainly one way to get out of dishwashing” he gripes, hiding his relief by focusing on taking off his boots. 

Geralt sighs, stretching languidly across the bed in a way he knows drives Eskel wild for him “I know, I only wish I’d thought of it sooner” 

Eskel pounces, taking Geralt’s lips in a kiss he can only hope conveys the enormity of his relief, his caring, all of the worry he’d felt. Geralt’s mouth opens easily for him, soft lips, parting on a silent sigh as he moves into Eskel’s orbit. His hair is soft between Eskel’s fingers, his body, chitinous in hard brown leathers, a warm certainty beneath him. 

Abruptly, Geralt pulls back, moving up the bed so he’s sitting more than lounging, his hands on Eskel’s chest, something deep and dark swirling behind his eyes, 

“The mages want me to do another Trial,” he says it calmly enough but Eskel’s blood turns to ice in his veins. 

“W-when? Why?” his mind is filled with the sounds of the screaming dead, the smell of burning flesh. 

“Tonight. Soon. It shouldn’t be too bad” Geralt says, sunny optimism in his smile, his hand, solid and sure against his cheek “They’re just gonna take me out in the woods is all. There’s something to do with a blindfold and some ritual shit but honestly Es, I’ll be fine” 

Eskel reaches out to gently brush a lock of that wildfire hair out of Geralt’s eyes, trying to memorize the feeling of the soft sweep of his cheek as he does. As though on instinct Geralt closes his eyes and turns his head into the touch, presses a kiss to Eskel’s palm,

“Come back to me,” Eskel says, softly, swamped by that now-familiar tenderness. 

“You know I will. I always do”

“Well I have to remind you periodically, get it through that thick skull of yours” 

Geralt laughs, sunny and warm, blinking open one golden eye. 

They fall together again, Geralt’s lips a steady warmth against his own. Eskel wants to wrap himself in Geralt and never leave, keep their bodies pressed together until they bleed together and become one being. For a moment he pretends that he can. That he can shield Geralt with his body, take his pain and make it his own, ride out the punishment for him as he had so often when they were children. This is what this is, a punishment, they both know it though neither has voiced it aloud. 

A knock at the half-open door sends them rocketing apart. 

“I’m assuming Geralt is in there” Vesemir’s voice comes drily through the door “It’s time” 

They stand, Eskel’s heart plummeting into his stomach at the sudden reality of it all. Vesemir standing in the hall, has his back turned as though to grant them some measure of privacy, but there’s a worry carved into the line of his spine, the way he stands. Dread seems to hang over the room like smoke, so dense Eskel can taste it, the thick cottony feeling of it in the back of his throat making it hard to swallow.

Geralt turns to go but pauses, as though he can sense Eskel’s desperation. He turns back again, takes Eskel’s face into his hands and kisses him - so softly, so tenderly that his heart nearly shatters with it. He spends a moment just holding him, forehead resting against his own, hand warm and sure against his cheek.

“I love you. I will always - remember that” he says, desperately, nearly silently against Eskel’s mouth, the first hint of unease he’s shown. 

“I-” Eskel’s tongue can’t seem to form the words, shaking and dropping the round consonant before it ever makes it past his lips. He settles for pressing his face into Geralt’s neck, breathing in that honey and juniper scent of him, committing it to memory.  _ I love you I love you I love you.  _

“Ready?” comes the voice from the door, not unkindly.

Geralt breaks away, slowly as though it pains him to do it, squaring his shoulders and schooling his expression into one of practiced neutrality. “Ready”. 

The sound of the door closing behind him seems to echo in the little room, the wide-open space left behind a yawning void. 

\--------

Eskel joins Vesemir on the ramparts. The sun is setting and the fading light paints a gash over the mountains, red and bloody as a fresh wound. Eskel thinks, unbidden, of dying and being dead and what loss will feel like when it comes. He digs his nails into his palms so hard he draws blood. If Vesemir notices the sudden copper-bright scent of it he doesn’t say anything - staring resolutely ahead at the dark woods and the fading light beyond. 

“What will happen to him?” he asks, watching Geralt make his way through the tall grass of the boneyard towards the darkness of the woods. Just outside the impenetrable treeline, the mages are waiting, twin moon faces shining dully in the gloom. 

“Horror” Vesemir replies, his mouth set grimly. 

Geralt looks back, just once. Seeing them on the ramparts he smiles and raises a hand in a half-hearted farewell before he turns again and is swallowed by the dark. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter should be up soon, it was supposed to be all one chapter but I thought it made more narrative sense to break it up. We're getting into angst territory folks, it's literally all downhill from here. 
> 
> Also: I realize the Trial of Forest Eyes isn't supposed to be like this but I'm taking creative liberty for maximum pain. Eskel is supposed to be from the hill country but I loved the idea of baby Eskel growing up in a port town by the sea so much that I'm keeping it (it may have something to do with the internet's recent collective obsession with sea shanties, idk).


	4. Fifty Stars Above My Head

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All aboard the pain train.  
> Chapter title from Backwaters by Drenge

They stand watch all night. Eskel knows he shouldn’t, that it’s not his place, but Vesemir makes no move to send him away, and so Eskel stays. His eyes grow dry, forgoing blinking in an effort to see deeper into the darkness than even his new cat-eyes can see. The blackness seems impenetrable, nearly supernatural, his tired eyes creating movement in the darkness where there is none - swirling shapes that refuse to resolve themselves into Geralt no matter how hard he wishes. His muscles lock up with inaction, the burn of them the only thing keeping him present. The wind whips from down the mountain, carrying an unseasonably biting cold, and the stars wheel in the heavens above them. Time passes, silence reigns. 

The sun, as though unwilling, begins to light the sky in the east. The sky takes on the color of an old bruise, threatening thunder, the pressure of the weather heavy behind Eskel’s dry and tired eyes. Like a dreamer coming awake, Vesemir blinks, once, relaxing his locked up muscles. There’s something heavy in his stance, a grim set to his mouth that Eskel can see even in profile. 

“Eskel” Vesemir says, voice thick with effort as though the words are too heavy for his tongue “We will need a grave” 

The winter he was fourteen Eskel had fallen through a weak spot in the ice on the lake. He remembers the sharp crack and the feeling of weightlessness before he’d hit the water. But what had scared him the most was the freezing, burning cold, the last gasp of terror as his head went under, and then the blackness. Now there is no mittened hand reaching from above to pull him back into the land of the living, no glimpse of Geralt’s panicked face against the winter sky as he reached for him, no surety of another body to lean against as he coughs up water. Now there is only a hole in the ice, cold water growing darker by the moment and Eskel is sinking, lungs filled with water so cold,  _ so very cold. _

“Did you hear me, trainee?” Vesemir doesn’t turn his head, doesn't look at him, impassive as always but his words are like a slap in the face, they reel him back from whatever edge of oblivion he was standing on, back into reality: the cold wind, the bloody dawn, the new and crushing emptiness. Eskel wants to hurt him. They’d gotten rid of his fear, and stamped out all but the hottest coals of his love but they hadn’t thought to inure him to grief. Eskel wishes that they had.

“Yes, Master” He replies, surprised that he can make any sound at all. 

It’s as though he’s moving through a dream, every familiar angle of the stairs, of the walls, seemingly seen reflected in a bowl of water, hazy and different, everything shifted slightly to the left. The grass of the boneyard is wet with dew, each blade a silver knife in the predawn, sharp enough to cut. He bites the inside of his cheek until it bleeds, the tang and the pain of it keeping him grounded, if only for the moment. The feeling of panicked loss tightens like a noose around his neck, impossible to swallow around. He wishes he remembered how to cry. 

Eskel spends a moment just standing in the middle of the boneyard staring into the darkness of the forest, the darkness of his mind, the darkness of the rich earth beneath his feet fed by so many years of death and decay - so many bodies, so many ghosts. Geralt deserves a good grave, he decides, someplace where he can see the sun, someplace where Eskel can visit him. 

Movement at the edge of the trees catches his attention, then, a scent, familiar and dear even covered over as it is with the acrid smell of pain and blood. 

Eskel takes off running across the field, ignoring Vesemir’s shout to wait from behind him. The grass is wet and he slips in the mud, catching himself at the last minute, his heart feeling as though it will explode out of his chest. Geralt stumbles out of the treeline, swaying dangerously in the moonlight. There’s a blindfold wrapped around his eyes and his face is pale, spattered with blood. In fact, the whole of him is covered in blood - the acrid stench of it rolling off him so strong it nearly makes Eskel gag. 

He catches Geralt just as his knees give way, bundles him up against his chest, and  _ holds  _ him. His own heart thundering wildly in his ears. Geralt is warm and firm and  _ alive _ in his arms, his clothes and hair matted with blood. When Eskel removes the blindfold his eyes are black and rolling in his skull as though he’d taken a potion of some kind. 

“Shhh shhh” Eskel whispers, clutching him close, kissing the top of his head, lips coming away tacky and rancid with drying blood “I’ve got you, you’re safe” 

Geralt clings to him like a drowning man to a raft, shaking like the last leaf of autumn. He’s burning up, feverish, a live coal in Eskel’s arms. There’s something rather like fear sitting heavy behind his breastbone, a feeling of desperate clinging, the sensation of sand slipping through his fingers. 

Suddenly Geralt makes a horrible choking sound, convulsing in Eskel’s arms, his eyes rolling back into his head. He simply holds him tighter, that age-old response, learned from childhood, to place his body as the bulwark between Geralt and pain - to shield, to protect. His eyes are burning and the noose around his neck is making it impossible to breathe. He’s powerless, utterly and completely, as Geralt thrashes in his arms, spraying blood from his lips onto Eskel’s face, his clothes. The bright, hot, sputter of it like a damn breaking - the desperate attempt to contain the uncontainable.

Geralt pushes him away, nearly throws him, some kind of animal strength awakened within him, and doubles over in the grass. He retches, back bending with the violence of it, choking on whatever it is. With a great rush, he vomits, finally, spits, blood and bile and the little pearls of  _ teeth _ spattering onto the grass. The smell of it nearly makes Eskel gag. The teeth glitter amidst the stringy redness like the seeds of a pomegranate, speckled with the black specks of half-digested blood and torn pieces of his gums. 

Geralt seems to still for a moment hunched in the dirt, his breath coming in ragged, rattling gasps that speak to fluid in the lungs. Blood continues to drip, sluggishly, from between his parted lips as though an afterthought, as though Geralt is simply too tired to do anything but let it run out of him. 

Eskel reaches out a trembling hand to brush Geralt’s hair from his face, his skin is clammy and cold beneath Eskel’s hand, grey beneath the congealing blood like something dead. He does his best not to recoil at the old-body feel of it. 

“You’re alright” he mumbles, more to himself than to Geralt at this point. His heart is pounding in his ears with something that he should have recognized as fear. The smell of death and decay is all around them, a miasma that makes it difficult to breathe. His mind is a rush of  _ no no no no no  _ repeating and overlapping into a deafening cacophony of loss and denial inside his head. 

For a moment he lets himself believe it’s over, that Geralt will straighten up, back to his normal self and laugh at him for believing the theatrics, chide him for having such little faith. 

It’s not over. 

Geralt rears up in a sudden spasm. Bones crack and break as Geralt’s body bends itself backward, onto the ground. His eyes are utterly blank as his mouth, bloody and empty like the void, opens on a rictus of pain. Geralt begins to scream - it’s an animal noise, a leg-caught-in-a-trap noise. It’s a sound Eskel hears on repeat in his nightmares, the sound of dying in agony. 

Eskel steps back, alarmed. Besides the overwhelming smell of blood and pain, Eskel can smell Vesemir and several other masters approaching at a run. The muddied grass around Geralt’s contorted form is red, the sky is red, the dawn tearing a hole in the sky just as surely as this moment is rending Eskel’s life into pieces - a delineation between night and day, between  _ before  _ and  _ now  _ and whatever will happen after. 

He is pushed back, roughly, by whom he can’t be sure, too blind with  _ should-have-been-horror  _ to care much. 

“Hold him!” orders Vesemir, taking something from his pocket and pressing it into Geralt’s wildly gasping mouth. 

There is one more moment of wild trashing and then stillness. 

The silence is more profound than any silence Eskel has ever experienced - complete lack of sound or movement, thick with dread and the smell of pain.

_ They’ve killed him, he _ thinks, rooted to the spot by something heavier than fear. 

“Is he dead?” he asks Vesemir, staring, stoically straight ahead at the bloodstained patch of grass, Geralt’s teeth glittering like pearls among the gore. 

Vesemir doesn’t answer, simply clasps his shoulder with one strong hand as he passes, following the other masters, Geralt’s body slung between them, back up to the castle keep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic was originally supposed to be more angst and character analysis than plot but it has since started to grow a plot which has caused some major overhauling of the draft which means that the next update may not be for a while. The tags have changed slightly - no more Eskel/Coën relationship tag being the main one. 
> 
> As always, comments and kudos sustain me. Thank you to everyone for your support so far!  
> xox


	5. Did You Agree To Believe That This Fall Has No Bottom?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from the song "Dirty Blue" by Wovenhand which is Eskel's song. 
> 
> CW/TW for mentions of past child abuse (in flashback), some self-harming behavior, self-hatred, and drinking (though not much)

They don’t let him into the infirmary, rebuff his increasingly desperate attempts to see inside by closing and locking the door, muffling it with magic, completely shutting him off. He screams curses at the door, at Vesemir, at Rennes, at the mages, casts a furious _aard_ at it which is simply rebounded off the shield and sent to fizzle away to nothingness in the darkness of the hall. Finally, exhausted, he leans against the wall of the hall and realizes that his knees no longer hold him upright. The dissipation of all of the adrenaline and the fear and the horror leaving him utterly empty suddenly. Without conscious consent he sinks to the floor, gathering his knees to his chest, holding onto them simply for something to hold. He feels adrift, lost at sea, the world around him heaving and swaying sickeningly. The echoes of Geralt’s panic and pain seem to rattle about inside his head in an endless chorus blending and layering with the death-rattles of his long-dead brothers, a symphony of death that only gets louder when he covers his ears in an attempt to shut it out.

He’s covered in Geralt’s blood, his clothes, his hands, the side of his face - In the grey glimmer of predawn his hands look black with it. He can feel it drying tacky and crumbly, the red-meat smell of it surrounding him. It pulls as it dries on his cheek and suddenly it’s all too much. He reaches up, furiously scrubbing at his face with the hem of his sleeve until he can feel the burn, the wet tear of his own skin shredding beneath the friction. His eyes are burning, vision blurry with the memory of tears - the desire for them - but they don't come. He scrubs at his eyes anyway, as though by going through the motions he can find that same emotional release. 

\--------

_He’d taken the beating stoically, retreated to that far away place inside his head that let him endure, floated up to the safe space near the ceiling where no pain could touch him. It was a familiar place, a soft warm emptiness that held him like the memory of his mother._

_He will be better, he will endure._

_The blows fell across his back in stripes of hot fire and he imagined, in those brief moments between consciousness and escape, that he could_ hear _the skin break under the snap of the whip - a dry tearing, like old paper._

_He will be better._

_Dimly, he saw Geralt in the doorway being dragged away by others. He shouted, blue eyes burning furious, a bite in the set of his mouth. Eskel couldn’t comprehend what he said, too far gone, too close to the safety of oblivion. There was pain there but there was love too, endless rivers of it, a devotion too great to name. This was his duty, to protect, to shield. To keep Geralt from pain by placing his own body between him and the things that sought to do him harm. He would do it again and again, would die for it - place himself in the way of pain simply to shield Geralt from the world._

_He will endure._

_There was blood, he could feel the wet slick of it, and screaming boyish and juvenile, but no death, although it felt like dying_ . _At some point, he fell out of consciousness and into the waiting arms of blessed quiet._

\--------

He must sleep at some point between one desperate breath and the next because when he comes to there’s noon sun through the window and the sound of the cohort of yearlings running drills in the yard, Cero’s whip-crack of a voice echoing off of the cold stone ghostly with distance _._ He’s groggy, eyes hot beneath heavy lids, and his mouth tastes like dying things. Something nudges against his hip. Vesemir is standing over him. His hair has come loose and lies in a tangled nest over his shoulders, there’s a streak of dried blood on his cheek and exhaustion hanging heavy in the circles beneath his eyes. Tiredly, gently, the master witcher nudges Eskel’s hip with the toe of his boot again. 

“Come on,” he says “He’s calm” 

It takes a moment for Eskel’s mind to catch up with the rest of him, the events of the night coming back suddenly and in clear focus.

“Geralt…?” he asks, unsure how to finish the question: _is he alive? Will he be alright?_

Vesemir glares at him but there’s no bite to it “Don’t ask stupid questions” 

He scrambles up the wall to stand, his legs stiff from inaction and the cold of the floor. His body feels like one big bruise, mouth dry, throat hoarse from yelling but there’s a glimmer of hope. _Geralt is alive_. 

“Careful, lad,” Vesemir says, jerking his head towards the half-open infirmary door “He doesn’t know his own mind” 

The infirmary is how he remembers it from childhood, the dusty smell of old blood mixed with the astringent scent of antiseptic: there the low cupboard of potions and salves, there the pans for heating water to dress wounds, there Master Hesketh’s surgery tools laid out neatly on their leather tray, scalpels and needles, and thread. Overhead the crack in the ceiling that Eskel spent many a night, delirious with pain, making into shapes. There the five low cots, there the occupant of one. 

Eskel’s heart shudders in his ribcage, hope and joy glittering sharp as glass inside his lungs. He’s overwhelmed with love, with the sharp stab of relief at the sight of the familiar shape of Geralt’s body in the dimness. He’s propped up against the wall on several pillows, the bloodied sheets wrapped around him like a shroud. His face is death-pale in the dimness of the room, the only sign of life the subtle rise and fall of his chest with his breath. His dirty hair has been pulled back away from his face and plaited by some rough and loving hand but strands have come loose in the night and hang limp and sweat-black around his pallid cheeks. He’s stripped to the waist, skin grey-white and paper-thin, mottled with the mealy thunderclouds of bruises, the blue rush of blood beneath the surface visible through its translucency. 

“Geralt…” He’s so fragile in the darkness, all bird bones and thin skin, and Eskel aches for him loves him so incredibly, wants nothing more than to gather him close and _hold_ him. So he does; crosses the room in a desperate lunge, falling to his knees beside the bed and throwing his arms around Geralt, burying his face in his chest just to listen to the slow beat of his heart beneath his ribs. The body beneath him tenses, shudders, as though struck, confusion and pain twisting the pale face, the blood-burnt downturn of his mouth. Eskel pulls back, alarmed, not wanting to cause him harm.

They’ve bound his hands, he realizes with a pang, tied them with thick ropes to the bed frame as though holding him prisoner - as though Geralt is a danger. Eskel’s heart breaks at the sight of the raw-rubbed skin of his wrists, the dark blood on the ropes, the evidence of a struggle. Geralt’s hands, long-fingered and sword-scarred shake in their bonds as though with cold, a fluttering, frightened twitching that will not cease. Careful, as though reaching through a fire, Eskel takes one of those shuddering hands in his own, traces over the familiar topography of scars and calluses, the lines of his palm, feels the tremors like lightning through his own. Gently, slowly, he bends down and presses his lips to each scarred knuckle, each bruised tendon, careful not to pull the damaged wrist against the bonds - he offers his steadiness, his whole heart, there’s nothing else.

With the touch of his lips, finally, _finally_ , Geralt looks at him. There’s blood around his mouth, fresh blood, and bruises shaped like fingers across his cheek. His eyes glitter in the grey, ringed by sunken shadows, staring somewhere a million miles away. There’s nothing there, Eskel realizes, breath shuddering to a stop in his lungs, no recognition, no love, no spark of mischief that always seemed to glitter there like a coal in a banked fire. It is as though Geralt is seeing ghosts, his eyes gazing somehow beyond and _through_ Eskel at once. There is a wall behind those eyes, a shallow, shuttered emptiness. He’s a shell, so far retreated into himself it’s as though he was never there to begin with. It’s like looking at a corpse.

“You’re alright,” He says, gripping Geralt’s cold hand in his like it’s a lifeline “You’re alright”. It feels as though he’s been saying those words a lot recently, unsure who they’re meant to comfort. It’s a mantra of sorts, the repetition makes it believable. There’s nothing but hopelessness now, a yawning emptiness, a maelstrom in his chest cavity that threatens to swallow everything - _it’s me it’s me it’s only me._

“It’s me,” he says, whispers, _prays,_ reaching out with shaking fingers towards this death-mask of a familiar face “Geralt, it’s me.” 

Geralt flinches away from the almost-touch, same thousand-yard stare in his eyes. It’s as though the closeness burns him, lips pulling back to bare his teeth in a feral snarl of pain. His _teeth_ . Eskel jerks back, away, as though struck, his blood turned to ice, horror prickling along his skin. His teeth - The new, sharp, feral points of them, _predator’s teeth_ that are capable of tearing flesh from bone, dangerous and deadly and _wrong._

_What have they done to you?_

With a guttural cry, Geralt tears his hand away, lunges forward in a violent rush, his teeth gnashing towards Eskel’s throat. New blood blooms in his mouth as the sharp edges cut his lips and it sprays, hot and sudden across Eskel’s cheek. He flinches, falls backward onto his hands, rolls out of the way, only his training and reflexes keeping those sharp teeth from tearing a hole out of his neck. 

His heart is thundering in his chest, shock and horror warring for prominence. There's a stunned moment of silence, no sound or movement save for the wild rushing of blood in his ears and the feeling of an exhale with no inhale following. Geralt is hunched, breathing in shudders, blood bubbling from between clenched lips, looking _through_ him with those feral, closed off eyes. 

Eskel runs, coward that he is, abandons Geralt in that room with the smell of blood and fear. 

\-------

Down in the training yard, he bargains with the world. He prays to gods in which he barely believes, promises anything _anything_ for Geralt - _his Geralt -_ to come back to him. 

_I’ll give up my eyes,_ he thinks hitting the sparring dummy with enough force to send it swinging in a near circle from the pole on which it is suspended _I’ll cut out my own tongue and never speak a word if Geralt lives_ . _I’ll give my life for his._

“That’s enough” 

It’s Cero’s voice cutting through the film over his mind but he keeps hitting, some animal part of him relishing in the feeling of his knuckles splitting against the tough leather of the dummy. 

“Trainee, enough!” 

He pays no heed. He needs it - the movement, the stretch of muscle, the dull ache of the pain, the air in his lungs. All he can see are Geralt’s shuttered eyes, his predator's teeth, the blood in his mouth. He’d stepped _away,_ stepped backwards, he’d let the door close between them - committed the unforgivable sin of abandonment. His heart aches like something beyond broken - obliterated more like - a smoking crater in his chest full of _nothing nothing nothing._

“ _Eskel!”_

Firm hands on his wrists, the warmth of a body behind him.

“Enough, Eskel” 

Cero grabs him, pulling him into his chest and holding him even as Eskel makes movements to hurt the Witcher, punches that fall flat, kicks that don’t land, more for the feeling of the resistance of another body than because he thinks he could ever actually land a hit on the master. 

He laughs, somehow, caught up in Cero’s strong arms with his own bloody hands clutched to his chest. 

After a moment the witcher lets him go, nearly shoves him away, the violence of the movement sending Eskel careening across the yard. He stumbles, falls, bloodies his own lip on his teeth, too tired and strung out to catch himself before he hits the ground. The brief moment of freefall gives him time to catch his breath, reel himself back into his body. When he stands again the rage and grief and horror has been folded up tight and buried somewhere deep inside the sinew of his heart. Just as he was trained.

“Are you done then?” Cero asks when he straightens.

Eskel doesn’t reply, simply meets Cero’s gaze stonily. He can feel the blood from his hands drying sticky between his fingers. 

Cero sighs after a moment, something loaded about the sound, and turns to head towards the armory. “Come on, trainee. It’s time we talked” 

Eskel follows. 

Most of the rooms in the keep are more or less communal, especially the regularly used ones but the Armory is Cero’s domain alone. Between the racks of weapons - flails, glaives, pikes, swords of every length glittering in the dim daylight - Cero has eked out a little oasis for himself. Beneath the single half-moon window sits a low table and three chairs, in the corner a dark-stained cabinet, a curtain over an alcove hides what Eskel assumes is a bed. Several books sit atop the windowsill beside a pipe and a pouch of tobacco that Eskel recognizes as Vesemir’s. 

Cero goes to the little cabinet and pulls out a bottle of some clear liquid and two glasses which he sets on the rough-hewn table in the middle of the little alcove.

“You look like you could use one of these,” he says, pouring him a small glass of the clear liquid and placing it on the table in front of him. The smell coming off of the small glass is pungent - alcoholic and earthy with a tang that sticks on Eskel’s tongue.

Cero takes his own glass and raises it in a mock salute, a challenge in his one amber eye, before downing it in one. Eskel follows the master’s example. It burns on its way down, leaves behind a sickly-sweet, dusty taste and leftover tingle. Cero refills their glasses, taking a seat at the low table and gesturing Eskel into the other. Eskel remains standing, a minute act of defiance. 

Cero sighs, spreading his palms flat on the scarred tabletop. He looks adrift, working his jaw as though chewing on his words, searching in vain for the right ones.

“You have to forget him,” He says at last “I know the nature of this beast. If he survives he won’t be himself anymore, and if he doesn’t… well” He trails off, rubbing at a gouge in the tabletop with his thumb.

Eskel’s hands throb, bruised bones protesting as he curls them into fists, but he leans into the hurt, lets it keep him from hitting something. He wants to break himself against the world. 

“I can’t - I won’t” There’s anger bubbling just under the surface, he knows the master can sense it. He takes his refilled glass and drinks it down in one go. It fills and warms the emptiness in him, sets his scalp buzzing. Cero sighs, downing his own drink and then refilling their empty glasses a third time. 

“You will. You have to. Lovi- _caring_ for someone, especially another of our kind, is a liability, a weakness you can’t afford” He gestures vaguely to the ruined side of his face, the empty eye socket pink and slimy beneath the twisted lid. 

“So what then?” _what now?_ _what do I do with it all?_

“That is all. Love aches. For Witchers more so than for others. Pretend that he’s died if you must - it’s easier that way. Bury the feeling, everything he left inside of you take to the boneyard and burn. That is the only way to survive. Get used to the hurt, it will follow you always” for a split second Eskel sees the child in Cero; the lovelorn trainee who had loved and who had lost just as surely as Eskel has. “You’ll die of it - the love.”

Eskel takes the third drink more for something to do with his hands than because he wants it. He’s exhausted, empty, fit to shake apart. Every movement is felt as an ache in his bones, every angle of the sun overbright, every noise too loud. It feels as though he’s held together by a string pulled so taut the barest movement would be enough to snap it and send blood-sharp pieces of him scattering across the floor - an irreparable shattering. 

“Go. Sort out your head,” Cero says, at last, foregoing his glass to take a pull straight from the bottle, staring into the middle distance, ghosts wandering through the pathways of his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was a bitch. I swear if this was a physical object there would be teeth marks on it.
> 
> Story-wise: It's always darkest before dawn - and I promise you there will be dawn, eventually (it still has to get a tiny bit darker first).  
> (Also yes, it was Vesemir who plaited Geralt's hair)
> 
> Endless thank yous to everyone for your patience and support!


	6. All The Things That Pain Can Change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "He ached, abstractly, for more life, for a longer moment in the sun, for time to figure out the workings of his own heart. He doubted he’d get it. He was trained for oblivion, they all were. Destined, if they were lucky, for a plot in the boneyard, for a mere moment of being missed and nothing more"
> 
> CW/TW for brief suicidal ideation, drinking, and a brief thing that can be considered to be self-harm.

Geralt’s hair goes white in clumps, like a fox in winter, and takes the color out of Eskel’s life with it. He’s moving as though through a dream, the daylight hours of training and teaching rolling round in an endless repetition bookended by the brief reprieve of a sleep punctuated by nightmares. He comes to almost welcome them - the dreamed-horrors a technicolor relief from the heavy ache of the everyday. 

Eskel visits the infirmary in the evenings, sits across the room, the memory of those sharp teeth snapping near the skin of his throat at the forefront of his mind even as the very marrow of his bones calls out for closeness. Geralt seems to come back to himself by degrees, moving more as the days progress. His hands are unbound sometime on the third day but the twitching doesn’t cease. They seem to flutter through him, the tremors, unpredictable in their length and violence. Sometimes he’ll simply shiver through them as though it’s a passing chill. Sometimes they bend him into himself, shuddering fit to break apart, confusion and pain twisting the impassivity of his snow-pale face, mouth falling open in a silent gasp of agony. In these moments Eskel has to bite his lips bloody, dig his nails into his palms to feel the flesh part beneath them, to keep himself from taking Geralt into his arms in an attempt to ease some of the pain. 

They don’t speak, he doesn’t even know if Geralt  _ can _ speak anymore, they simply look at each other in the dimness. He doesn’t know what he’s looking  _ for _ in these long hours spent staring down a corpse - some kind of recognition perhaps, a hand reaching out in the dark - but nothing ever changes. Geralt watches him with his listless killers eyes and Eskel watches back. 

There’s a hole in his life, in the core of his very being. He still reaches out for the comfort of another body in the darkness, still turns to crack jokes to a shadow that is no longer there, still eats with his left hand even though there’s nothing but empty space beside him to lean against. It’s as though the entire world has shifted, everything warped against the event horizon of this black hole that follows Eskel around like a devoted hound. 

After a week he stops visiting, starts nursing the bitter, rotten hole inside his chest instead. 

This…  _ thing _ … isn’t Geralt, not anymore. The grey skin, the white hair, the teeth like little knives that Eskel wakes in cold sweats feeling close around his throat. Geralt had always been warmth and  _ living _ to Eskel, both a promise and a reminder that they lived, that they would go on living. Now, faced with the corpse-like shell of him, Eskel’s existential footing falters. There is a part of him, a twisted and angry part, that wishes Geralt  _ had _ died. The thought gnaws at his bones like a rat and refuses to leave him alone.

He cuts himself open on the sharp edges of his own guilt and savors the pain.

\--------

Eskel wakes in a cold sweat, the thundering of a nightmare behind his eyes. His mouth is dry and his chest aches as though he’d been running for miles or gasping for air. There’s a moment of panic, a flail into the empty space beside him, a desperate grasping for another body that isn’t there. But the sheets still smell of Geralt and he buries his face in them, wrapping himself in the phantom comfort until the feeling subsides and the sick lilt in his stomach settles. It’s morning, or near enough, the birds singing in the red gash of dawn as though to herald the end of the world.

He spends a short eternity simply staring at the ceiling. Even as early as it is the heat is oppressive, thick with humidity and the warmth sits in the wells of his temples and promises a headache. At a loss, finally, he rolls himself out of bed. It feels as though struggling against the weight of thick sand, nearly impossible to move through, but any sort of movement is preferable to lying paralyzed by his thoughts. He dresses slowly, skin sticky with sweat, and takes his time buckling his sword to his hip, fingers awkward with exhaustion. 

Out in the hall he passes by Geralt’s room, more out of habit than necessity, and pauses momentarily. The door is partly open, movement coming from within the darkness of the room. Hope stabs him in the lungs, familiar in its hurt. Geralt’s room is a mirror of his: bed pushed against the same wall, same round mirror, same pine-wood dresser, same bearskin rug. Geralt is standing before the mirror, staring dimly at his reflection in the glass. He’s thin from his weeks in the infirmary, pale skin stretched skull-like over the bones of his face. His armor seems to dwarf him, hanging off his shoulders in a slump, black leather stark against death-white skin. As though moving through water he reaches one trembling hand to his head, wrapping a lock of that thin white hair around a finger as though to test the reality of it. He pulls, once, twice, as though disbelieving, looking at his reflection as though it’s an image of a stranger. There’s no emotion in his face when he catches Eskel’s eye in the mirror, just a long drawn out emptiness, cold and white as the tundra. 

Eskel hears the mirror shatter from where he has retreated down the hall. The brute impact of a fist and the tinkling of glass; a feral growl that fades out into a gasp of heartbreak that isn’t so much heard as  _ felt.  _ Eskel turns his back, again, and tries to swallow the guilt of it.

\--------

It turns out having Geralt on the other side of the wall is worse than not having him at all.

He can hear him, in the night, through the wall between their beds. Geralt doesn’t cry out in his nightmares but Eskel can hear him suffering on the other side of the wall and aches for him, with him,  _ because _ of him. He curls on the floor in the farthest corner of the room and tries to ignore it, tries to shut it out to no avail. 

On the fourth night, he breaks; presses himself up to the wall between their beds as though he could move through it, as though by sheer force of will he could bridge the distance. He starts talking, platitudes, calming nonsense words, whispers them against the cold stone like he would whisper them against the crown of Geralt’s head when they were young. 

He rambles, about nothing in particular, sings scraps of songs he remembers from their childhood, presses his feverish forehead against the rough stone of the wall between them just to feel the bite of the stone against his skin. He tells the fairy story about the lady who was cursed to only watch the world in a mirror and who was killed for falling in love and looking at her lover head-on. He recites potion ingredients with what, he hopes, is enough love to keep the nightmares at bay. 

“You’re alright,” he says over and over, that old familiar mantra coming out gritty from his exhausted throat “I’m here”  _ if you want me.  _

Geralt quiets, his breathing evens out from panic to serenity, the desperate bitten-off sounds of his cries trickle out slowly into sleep. 

Eskel sleeps like that, a supplicant kneeling at the altar of separation. 

\---------

If anyone notices his exhaustion they don’t mention it, but he sees the signs in himself: the bloom of black shadows beneath his eyes, the nearly constant gritty texture of his mouth. He loses his temper with the littles and immediately regrets it but it happens again and again. He feels as though he’s on the end of his tether, worn thin by lack of sleep and the concentration of keeping everything buried, everything seeming normal. 

He doesn’t see Geralt much - the other man never seems to seek him out or even want to see him - but he is aware of his presence always. The ghost of his scent in the sheets of Eskel’s bed, the white shadow of his hair as he turns a corner down the hallway, the familiar cadence of his footsteps which sometimes pause before the door of his room before continuing onwards to his own. His presence aches like a phantom limb, the pain of something lost, of something long gone. 

He goes to the midsummer feast as much to torture himself as to take part in the festivities. He doesn’t eat, simply snags a bottle of vodka from a crate and retreats to a corner of the courtyard with it, far enough from the bonfire that he doesn’t feel its heat. 

The bonfire is massive, spiraling tongues of flame reaching up towards the heavens, the  _ sound  _ of it akin to the rushing of a thousand wings. It seems to move and dance as though alive, red light bouncing bloody off the rough walls of the keep. This far north the sky never gets completely black at midsummer and the late-night is bathed in ghostly light. Several cohorts of littles dart about, chasing each other among the sparks from the fire, climbing and hiding in the slowly dwindling pile of wood brought in from the forest, their shouts and laughter like music in the dimness. The yearlings and older boys stick to the shadows near the low feasting tables; hormones and rough training regimens keeping them in hunger pangs even when well-fed and the chance to glut themselves without judgment is a welcome one. Sometime close to midnight Master Holbrok breaks out his lute and begins a long slow rendition of “The Roving Boy” punctuated by tipsy shouts of encouragement from the cohort of junior boys under his command. 

Eskel takes that at his cue to leave. 

Driven by ghosts he takes the spiral stairs to the high tower, forced to lean against the wall every couple of feet and wait for the world to stop spinning. He’s drunk, he supposes, half-empty bottle sloshing in his hand, but he feels  _ alright  _ for the first time in a while; the world gone soft around the edges as though all the hurt has been bled out of it. The hole inside of him isn’t raw anymore but numb, the emptiness not as volatile, not nearly as dangerous. He can  _ look _ at it now when he couldn't before. 

Drunk as he is, he nearly runs headlong into a knot of senior boys who have taken up refuge beneath one of the tower windows. There are five of them, sprawled against each other in a heap against the stairwell, faces shiny with drink and the warmth of easy closeness, passing a bottle around. One whispers something in the ear of another and gets a shove for his trouble. They flail about laughing for a moment before coming to rest against each other again; here a lazy knee against a thigh, a head against a shoulder, an ankle thrown over another - easy closeness, the steadiness of brothers. They look so  _ young _ , lanky in their un-mutated musculature, their round faces, a certain kind of hungry desperation in their eyes - the look of boys staring down the inevitable freefall of their own deaths and trying, desperately, to be brave. 

They don’t notice him but all the same, the sight jogs the memory he’d been avoiding - the memory of last midsummer. He, Geralt, Finn, and Aleix had taken several bottles to the high tower late in the night and watched the sunrise again as the bonfire burned out down in the courtyard below. They’d toasted to the future, to their own deaths, joking with all the humor of a raw wound that this was the last midsummer they’d ever see. 

The scar on the heel of his hand is silky and white, nearly invisible now, so small that it would be impossible to find if you didn’t know it existed, but Eskel’s fingertips seek it out unerringly. It aches, itches in a bone-deep way he can’t describe. 

\--------

_ “To death” they’d laughed, clinking their bottles together “to destiny.”  _

_ “To fuckall and misery” Finn had continued, eyes rolled back into his skull just to make the others laugh at the absurdity of it all.  _

_ Eskel and Geralt had sat pressed against the low wall, passing the bottle back and forth, neither of them trusting their legs to stand, the drop off the edge of the parapet a welcome nearness all the same. The comfort of seeing the exit. _

_ “Good riddance, all of it,” Aleix said, stretching, his blond hair gone pink in the sunrise “I don’t want it anyhow. Never did. It’ll be a blessing, the silence”  _

_ Finn had slapped him for his trouble, the two falling into a scuffle, all sharp elbows and knees against the rough floor _

_ Geralt watched them fight for a while, his blue eyes unreadable. His body, leaned against Eskel’s on the floor, was heavy, alcohol slumped and easy in its movement.  _

_ “I don’t want to die” he had said at long last, his voice quiet, a personal confession for Eskel alone. Eskel looked at his companion sidelong - the freckles on his cheeks, the cut of his jaw just now losing the roundness of childhood, his fine lashes, the narrow bridge of his nose wrinkled in consternation - and realized he didn’t want to die either.  _

_ “You won’t,” he said instead, leaning his head on Geralt’s shoulder, a selfish closeness permitted by the drink “If anyone is going to make it out it’s you”  _

_ “Don’t say that” There had been legitimate alarm in his tone, in the tensing of his hand where it was curled with Eskel’s in the shadow between them “You’ll make it too, you will”  _

_ Eskel shrugged. He ached, abstractly, for more life, for a longer moment in the sun, for time to figure out the workings of his own heart. He doubted he’d get it. He was trained for oblivion, they all were. Destined, if they were lucky, for a plot in the boneyard, for a mere moment of being missed and nothing more.  _

_ Finn and Aleix had finally come to rest against a pillar, curled like cats against each other, and were snoring softly, Aleix’s blonde head pillowed against Finn’s stomach. _

_ Geralt pulled back so he was looking Eskel in the eye. His eyes were blue back then, glacier blue, the blue of heaven. Eskel had melted into them.  _

_ “Do you trust me?” Geralt had asked, taking his dagger from his boot, a fire burning low behind his eyes. Eskel had nodded, mute with the enormity of the feeling, the trust.  _

_ The pain of the knife against the heel of his hand was dulled by the alcohol, more of an ache than a sharp bite even as the skin had split into a deep gouge. Eskel had the distinct vision of Geralt cutting him to pieces one inch at a time - he thought, that if Geralt should ask, that he would let him do it.  _

_ Quickly, efficiently, Geralt had taken the knife to his own palm. Eskel watched the blood well up, first dawn red against the snowy paleness of Geralt’s skin, and had thought about putting it to his mouth. _

_ “Here,” Geralt said, pressing their palms together, blood sliding wet, body-hot, and sticky between them. He interlaced their fingers, pressing their wounds together, tightly, tighter, tighter until it felt as though they’d meld into one being. Edges of wounds caught on edges of wounds in an electric shiver of near-pain, the most intimate insides of their bodies exposed, pressed against the other. “now wherever we go, whatever happens, we’ll carry a part of each other. We’ll keep the other one alive”  _

_ Blood of my blood.  _

_ We’ll keep the other one alive.  _

_ \-------- _

He staggers onto the top of the wall, spins in a giddy circle, once, twice, before catching himself on the low angle of the parapet and pulling himself upright. There's a chill to the wind, a bite, that cools the sweat along his hairline and brings some kind of momentary clarity to his mind. The sun is rising, inasmuch as it ever truly set, plumes of pink and gold beginning to peek over the edge of the surrounding mountains. There’s a peace to it, a gentle rolling softness that places itself at odds with the hurricane inside his head. 

He runs his fingers over the scar on his palm, the smooth heat of it as much a talisman as a curse. He takes another swig from the bottle, unsteady on his feet. As though in a trance he leads himself to the very edge of the wall, the farthest point of it, the scuffed toes of his boots hanging out over emptiness. 

From this height, it’s a straight plunge to the unforgiving ground. He wonders, somewhat absently, what it would feel like to jump - let the weight of gravity and the things he carries send him tumbling towards the earth. If all his bones would break if the pain would be worth the oblivion. He halfway thinks it might be. 

Movement from behind him tears him from his morbidity. Geralt stands in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest. His long white hair is pulled back away from his face in a knot at the base of his neck, his golden eyes watch Eskel from beneath white brows. There’s something drawn about his expression, the barest tick of worry and confusion. The sight of it sends something uncomfortable and slimy slithering through Eskel’s stomach. 

Geralt opens his mouth as though to say something, then closes it again in frustration, sucking at the new wounds his teeth broke open on his lips, blood bubbling hot and red between them. Silent, he extends a hand towards Eskel, tottering as he is on the edge of oblivion. His knuckles are bruised and Eskel can see the barely-healed points where shards of glass had been removed from them. The scar on his palm, twin to Eskel’s, shines softly against his death-pale skin. He's a ghost, a memory - a shell of a body resurrected against his own will. 

It’s too much suddenly and Eskel pushes past him without a word, carefully not touching him. How he makes it to his room he doesn’t quite remember, drunk as he is, but he sleeps soundly for the first time in months; held unconscious by the alcohol, untroubled by dreams. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize "The Lady of Shalott" has nothing to do with the world or mythology this canon is based on... idk what to tell you guys. 
> 
> There will probably be another 5 chapters plus an epilogue from here if I stick to my plot map (literally when has that ever happened) 
> 
> Thanks again for all of the support and love! It means the world!   
> X


	7. Steel For Men...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW/TW for violence, blood, and drinking.

Summer fades out in waves, bright sun and hellish heat mellowing into pleasant honey-tinted afternoons and chill mornings that glitter in the early light, dew on every blade of grass like pearls. The wheat in the fields turns gold with ripeness, the trees in the orchard bear fruit, and the usual routine of the castle shifts from training and teaching into threshing and harvesting. Boys, those not undergoing the Grasses that season, traipse back and forth from the fields laden down with their bounty - skin dusty in the richness of the light. Eskel is reminded, not for the first time, of squirrels or field mice outfitting their nest in preparation for winter. 

Eskel should be preparing for the mountain, stockpiling potions and weaponry like his own type of chipmunk, but he can’t bring himself to. There’s a finality to it, a creeping reminder of change and mortality. The mountain is an end as much as a beginning; it marks the end of his childhood and the beginning of his life as a Witcher in his own right. They’d always been excited for it - he and Geralt. The promise that one day they could escape, make their own futures, walk their own paths had been the only light in their world most days. They’d held that promise of escape in their hearts like a talisman. Now though, the concept of leaving Kaer Morhen has started to feel like less of an escape than a punishment - an exile. The thought of leaving the Keep sets something bone-deep and weary into his soul. He is a part of it. His bones are the castle’s bones, his blood responds to the thrum of magic through the stones. He knows the castle like one knows the body of a lover, every corner and lose stone meaningful. He is a part of it. He doesn’t know who he will be without it, scared of what he might discover about himself. And so he freezes in his own inaction, stunned by the threatening nearness of a future he’s not sure he wants anymore. 

He doesn’t see Geralt for several days though he hears him moving around his room in the mornings. He wonders where he goes, what he does, and tries not to. He tries to adjust to a world without Geralt in it, to a world where he’s alone and where being alone doesn't hurt. It’s as though they’re bound together somehow - Eskel’s body attuned, always, to Geralt’s presence, always listening for him in the dark. It’s unbearable, the  _ almost _ and the  _ never again _ of it all making his heart ache even as he convinces himself it doesn't anymore. 

He turns to drink. For the life of him, he can’t remember  _ how _ but it calms the storm inside his head, fills up the aching emptiness in his chest with something warm and numb. It makes it easier to pretend that he doesn’t want to tear himself to pieces. If he’s drunk he doesn’t have to hear Geralt suffer in his sleep. If he’s drunk he doesn’t have to face his own thoughts or lie awake at night listening to the little voice in his head that whispers that this is all his fault. 

\--------

He’s teaching a cohort of littles in the courtyard - or rather he’s supposed to be  _ helping _ teach a cohort of littles but ancient Master Aarden had fallen asleep in a patch of sunlight and Eskel is loath to wake him. It’s a glorious late summer midafternoon, one of those where the whole world seems to be encased in amber, so thick and golden is the light. It’s just cool enough that sitting in the sun is comfortable, helped along by the chill breeze that sweeps from down the mountain, redolent of pine and sunburnt grass. 

They’re assembling ingredients for  _ Black Blood _ , hopefully enough to store and send out with the pack come spring and the littles are attempting to cut open the hard nut of a selkimore claw to extract the nerve. It’s a difficult and unforgiving process and Eskel lets them struggle through it with minimal interference - they’re smart, they’ll figure it out.

He only leaps to attention when one of them grabs the steel dagger laid out on the table and holds it above his head, shouting like a barbarian ready to deliver a killing blow. He grabs the boy’s wrists in his strong grip, keeping him from bringing the blade down. 

“What’s the first rule of Witchering?” he asks, taking the blade and setting it aside. 

“Talk shit get hit,” says one, brightly - Lambert something-or-other, a ginger-haired slip of a kid who likes to bite at the world as though he wants to swallow it whole. Eskel would like him if he wasn’t so gods-be-damned annoying. 

“No the other one” He presses, rubbing his thumbs into his eyes in an attempt to stave off the incoming hangover headache. 

“Silver for monsters, Steel for men!” another pipes up. 

“That one. What do you have there?” 

“A selkimore claw” they answer dutifully in chorus.

“And what are you doing with it?” 

“Cutting it open for the nerve”

“With what”

“A… blade?” they blink at him with their wide eyes, uncomprehending. 

“A steel blade. Monster blood will melt the steel leaving it useless and you without any way to defend yourself. Imagine you’re on the Path trying to defend yourself and you draw the wrong blade and it melts in your hands - now you’re injured twice, molten steel all over your hands and a moment of weakness for the monster to exploit. You need to remember the rules”.

They look crestfallen at the admonishment and Eskel has a moment of guilt for his surliness before remembering how  _ he’d  _ learned that lesson. Nico had worn the burn scars on his face for the rest of his life. 

“Here,” he relents, showing them just where to strike the claw with the hilt of the blade so it splits cleanly down the middle. They, with the exception of Lambert, are suitably impressed and turn to try the technique on their own specimens with varying levels of success. 

By the time they've finished the sun has fallen behind the walls, casting the courtyard into purple shadow. Eskel releases the littles into the care of their commanding Master and takes a long moment to just sit, back pressed against the sun-warmed stone of the wall. He’s sick of himself, itching in his own skin. He’s hungover and sluggish, every muscle locked up with an internal chill, and his head pounds relentlessly in time with the beat of his heart. He closes his eyes halfway and lets himself bask in the warmth of the stones, the breeze in his hair, the smell of dinner wafting from the kitchen - roast venison and the plenty of harvest time. 

From the corner of his eye, he spots a flash of white hair, stark against black leathers, the sight of it sending his heart rocketing into his throat. 

Geralt spends a moment hanging in the shadow of the wall just looking at him as though unsure how to proceed. There’s a volatility to his expression, a thundercloud over the set of his brow. He looks unmoored, shimmery, and unreal in the last glimmer of daylight, more a ghost than a man - just a memory passing through.

He shakes himself after a long moment, turns from Eskel to take up his position before one of the leather training dummies. He stretches, rolls his shoulders like he always used to before training, the gesture of it so familiar and playful and  _ human _ that it constricts Eskel’s chest. 

Geralt passes through each revolving form as though it’s nothing, the speed of his footwork kicking up clouds of dust. The sound of his blade against the thick leather of the dummy echoes hollowly off the walls of the keep, steady and regular as a heartbeat. 

Eskel spends several minutes just watching him; the flex of muscles in his thighs, the sharp line of a concentrated scowl in the set of his full mouth. Geralt had always been an exceptional swordsman, all predator’s grace and unerring accuracy, but something’s changed. For a moment Eskel isn’t sure exactly what, then he realizes it’s the  _ speed _ . He’s moving faster than should be possible even with their mutated bodies, blows raining down on the dummy thick and fast, a constant barrage, his white hair flying behind him like a sheet of snow. For old times sake, Eskel wants to pit himself against that speed and strength. 

So he does; draws his sword and crosses the courtyard to stand in Geralt’s periphery until the other notices his presence. Geralt pauses, glances at him with a question in the quirk of his mouth. There’s a moment during which they just stare at each other over the hilts of their blades, unsure about each other’s motives. 

Eskel raises an eyebrow in challenge and his blade in a salute. 

Geralt bares his carnivore’s teeth in a painful-looking attempt at a smile and salutes him back. 

They run through defensive forms without having to speak, trading blows back and forth, breathing synched as though from one set of lungs. It’s familiar, companionable in such a way that, as long as he doesn’t look too closely at the white-haired head across from him Eskel can pretend it’s  _ normal _ . 

They fall out of drill formation and into all-out sparring as twilight drifts towards night. Geralt’s attacks become more and more aggressive, faster, Eskel having to yield more ground to the defense each time. Geralt’s expression never changes; all empty stoicism, no betrayal of effort or emotion, he’s a predator and Eskel is his prey, something to be toyed with. It’s exhilarating, being the center of that supernatural attention.

The sounds of metal on metal clang and ricochet around the courtyard, a slowly increasing tempo. Soon Eskel has given up all hope of offense, each attack coming faster and more furiously than the last. All of Geralt’s old tells are gone, the minutiae of his body language that Eskel used to be able to read as easily as the printed word scrubbed from him, every tactic a surprise. He moves like a dancer, light on his feet, all perfect concentration and impeccable form; the flex of his muscles, the intensity of his gaze. He’s truly in his element, body honed and remade into a weapon so perfect Eskel is breathless with the beauty of it. 

Geralt continues to best him, never quite landing a hit but continuing to force him backward towards the wall nevertheless. Eskel, muscles burning, nearly cornered now, spots his in. He takes advantage of the split-second of inaction to cast the smallest  _ aard _ , sending Geralt staggering back several feet, giving himself some room to breathe, chaos crackling over his skin. 

Behind Geralt’s eyes, something  _ snaps.  _ Suddenly the man before him isn’t Geralt anymore but a stranger wearing a dead man’s face.

Eskel barely has time to raise his sword to defend himself before Geralt is on him, growling, sharp teeth gnashing in rage. Moving faster than he can comprehend Geralt wrenches his arm backward in a twist that threatens to break bones, mashing his face into the wall with one large hand. Eskel feels his nose break, the white-hot grinding of bone against bone, the blood gushing hot and wet over his lips. Geralt’s breath is hot and heavy on the back of his neck, the weight of his body the presence of a predator, reminiscent of lost intimacy in an irony that stings more than his face. The sharp cold line of a stiletto blade pulled from Geralt’s sleeve, presses into his jugular. His pulse is beating rabbit-fast and he wonders if Geralt can hear it, can smell it, if it makes him hungry. 

“Geralt” he grits out, dragging his cheek along the rough stone to feel the skin shred against it. He’s not sure what he’s asking for really, what he wants, but there’s a weight in his chect, bone-deep and nameless. 

Geralt doesn’t move, just holds him there as though considering. In another life, Eskel would have pushed back against him, used their joint body weight to spin them round, he would have pushed Geralt’s back against the wall and kissed him senseless, the blood in his mouth be damned. In another life, he would have fought harder for Geralt, walked into hell just to drag him out again but he’s tired now and hurting, all he wants to do is sleep.

“Get it over with,” he says, pushing his neck into Geralt’s blade, savoring the barest bite of steel, the white heat as the impeccably sharpened blade breaks the first layers of skin.

There’s a moment where Eskel thinks he’s going to do it, going to dig the blade in deep, twist it just to make it hurt, and then leave him in the dirt. 

He doesn’t. 

Instead, he pulls away completely suddenly, as though burned, coming back to himself all at once. The dagger clatters to the cobblestones with his haste, hands going over his mouth as he gapes in horror, blanched and sick with what he’s done. In a reversal of roles, Geralt is the one who runs this time, leaving Eskel cold and exposed, his own blood dripping into his mouth. 

\--------

Alone in his room, he sets his own nose. He bends over an old rag to catch the blood and leans into the pain of it as the bones grate back into place. His whole face aches, his eyes going puffy and black, skin hot and swollen under his curious fingers. It’s not the first broken nose he’s suffered and it certainly won’t be the last but the hurt of this one is different. He can still feel the sharky presence of Geralt at his back, see the horror and self-loathing on his face when he realized what he’d done.

He needs a drink, hands going twitchy with it. He needs to calm the endless, maddening race of his thoughts inside his head. There’s hatred there, and guilt for the hatred, and fear of the guilt and the hatred combined. His heart aches, some minuscule but important component of it broken beyond repair. His mouth still tastes of blood, the gummy thickness at the back of his throat makes it hard to swallow, makes his stomach churn. 

He takes the back stairs to the ground floor, sneaking through the kitchen, blessedly empty this late in the evening. The large cooking fire is banked to coals and the silvery moonlight from the low window seems to turn the world to stone. From the kitchen it’s easy enough to slip through the door to the cellar, tuck a bottle under his arm and retreat with it. 

Crossing back across the ground floor he hears voices. The door to Rennes’ office is ajar, gold firelight spilling out into the hallway along with two voices, clearly arguing. There is only one Witcher alive who can argue with Rennes and get away with it. Against his better judgment, Eskel stops to listen. 

“Something has to be done” Rennes’ voice, then continuing a little desperately “Radowit will have our heads for this” 

“What are you suggesting?” Vesemir’s voice is even as ever but there’s an edge to it, a barely contained freezing fury that Eskel has never heard before. 

“We can’t let him take the mountain - he’s clearly unstable. He has to be put down” 

With a sick twist of his stomach, Eskel realizes who they’re talking about, what’s at stake. His face throbs and he grasps the neck of the bottle in his hands so tightly he worries the glass will shatter.

“We’re Witchers, not sorcerers,” says Vesemir “We don’t murder our own young”

Eskel hears the sound of a cork coming out of a bottle and the low glitter of glass on glass, the pouring of liquid. 

Rennes sighs and Eskel can imagine him; leonine mane of black and silver hair, the scars on his hands as he pinches the bridge of his nose in consternation, shoulders slumped from the weight of everything he carries. 

“We wouldn’t survive a repeat of Stefan. They’d end the school, wipe us off the map. I know Geralt has always been a favorite of yours, but what’s one life compared to hundreds?” 

There’s a pause, the tension of it palpable even outside the room. Eskel feels as though he’s going to vibrate out of his skin, frozen in place by a combination of terror and  _ rage _ . 

“Are we not” Vesemir says - poison dripping from every word “bound by a code that holds sacrosanct the saving of every human life - no matter the cost?”

“He’s a monster” 

“He’s a  _ child”  _

The silence that follows crackles with intensity, the wordless contest of wills raging silently behind the door, power passing back and forth, a struggle for dominance. 

“You’re right,” Rennes says, finally. There’s the sound of a large body falling boneless into a chair then a heavy sigh “It’s in the hands of Destiny now. What’s done is done” 

It’s the sudden bloom of the scent of blood that startles Eskel, brings him back to himself, sends him turning, alarmed, towards the source of it.

Geralt’s gaze meets his from across the hall, filled with an emotion too deep and horrible for Eskel to comprehend. He holds one shaking hand over his own mouth, razor-sharp teeth dug into the sensitive web between thumb and forefinger, biting down as though to keep from making a sound. He’s bleeding, rivers of red flowing from between his teeth over pale skin, staining the sleeve of his shirt scarlet in the darkness of the hall. Eskel’s breath catches, pain and guilt twisting his stomach into knots - he must have heard everything. 

“Geralt…” he whispers, half apology half entreaty, reaching out for the death-pale ghost of him. 

Swift as a shadow, Geralt turns and disappears. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Truly not sure how I feel about this one but I can't look at it anymore without going blind so here it is.  
> The next chapter is the darkest of the fic and then we will begin to swing towards the light again.
> 
> Things that require an explanation for worldbuilding: The idea that monster blood melts steel is entirely pulled out of my own ass.  
> Radowit II (Not to be confused with Radovid V - different assholes, totally different backgrounds) was a king of Kaedwen who financed the Wolf school at some point. Canon (or at least the wiki) is vague about if he was their sponsor before or after the sacking of Kaer Morhen. For my purposes, he's holding the purse strings during the two decades or so before the massacre.


	8. ...Silver for Monsters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CW/TW for graphic suicide attempt, minor self-harming behavior, drinking, and a sex dream.

In his dream, Eskel holds Geralt in his arms. They’re tangled up together somewhere soft and hazy, skin on skin, the rolling heat between them maddening even as they rock together. They're hard already, desperate for each other. Geralt’s mouth is soft and pliant against his own; it is salvation, it is the reddest fruits of summer. Kissing him is air after too long underwater - a gasping return to life. He tastes of smoke and autumn storms, a darkness to his lips Eskel hadn’t known before. It’s addicting, electrifying, he loses himself in the ozone tang of it. 

They move together. Geralt, pale and lithe, hair like spiders silk in the unreal-dimness of this dreamscape, is as firm as a shadow in his arms, a ghost of himself. But it’s good enough, real enough for now, as he wraps Geralt into the bulwark of his own body as though to shield him, breathing in the lust-hot scent of him, desperate for even this dreamed closeness. 

He shakes as Geralt presses slick fingers into his body, the heat and stretch overwhelming, the sensation so  _ right _ \- so familiar even though this was something they’d never done waking. 

“Gods, Geralt” he whines, writhing on Geralt’s hand, desperate for this, for  _ anything _ . In the hazy dreamlight Geralt is a thing of moonglow, soft as moth wings, his blood-red lips curved into a fond smile as he expertly picks Eskel apart at the seams. 

Eskel cries out when Geralt sinks into him (finally, finally), hands scrabbling against pale shoulders - the thick stretch of his cock nearly too much to bear but he  _ needs _ it, needs to give himself over to this undoing. Geralt pauses, panting, mouth pressed to Eskel’s cheek. His skin is warm and Eskel can feel the low thrum of every beat of his heart against his own where they are pressed together, chest to chest. He feels  _ complete _ ; so stretched open, so laid bare he wonders if Geralt can see into his soul - if the broken rawness of it frightens him.

Geralt throws his head back and moans when he starts to move, a low rumble deep in his throat that Eskel answers in kind, reaching out to bring them impossibly closer. When Geralt opens his eyes and looks down at him, expression wide open and blissed out, it’s all Eskel can do to keep from coming apart.

“I love you,” he says, because he means it, because he can’t say it now, because he never said it when he could and will carry that guilt with him forever “I love you, I love you” He repeats it like a prayer even as pleasure builds from low in his stomach. He’s lost in the maddening, rocking fullness of Geralt inside him, possessing his body as he already possesses his heart, his mind, every tucked-away corner of his soul. This is as close to heaven as he fears he will ever get, this total abandonment of himself, nothing has ever been as freely given. 

“I love you” he repeats, shaking at the edge of orgasm, lost in the molten gold of Geralt’s eyes above him.

Geralt doesn’t reply, just leans in as though to kiss him …. and tears his throat out with his teeth.

\--------

He wakes choking on his own blood. He rolls over and spits, coughs, a dark globule of congealing blood hitting the floor with a horrible wet sound. He spends a long moment just lying there, panting, trying to get the terrified racing of his heart under control. He can taste his own blood in the spaces between his teeth, the promise of rot and ruin heavy at the back of his throat. 

It was his nose, he realizes, belatedly - must’ve rolled over in the night, jostled it. With a curse, he rolls onto his back, attempts to focus on the beams of the ceiling until his head stops spinning. He’s tangled himself in the blankets and the sweat on his skin is going uncomfortably clammy in the coolness of the room. In the momentary lull that follows panic Eskel presses his hands to his mouth and tries to remember the dreamed sensation of Geralt’s lips, tries to capture it and keep it. But, like all dreams, it trickles through his fingers like water, like sand; the fog of it burned away by the slowly encroaching dawn leaving him clutching desperately at the memory of a memory.

“Fuck” he growls, lurching unsteadily from the bed to splash his face with water from the washbasin. 

The frigid water clears his head somewhat, calms the leftover fever flickering beneath his skin. He startles himself with his own reflection in the mirror when he looks up; gaunt and ghostly pale, lank dark hair, twin black eyes, and blood around his mouth. He looks like a wraith, a ghoul, some member of the hordes of cursed undead he’s been trained all his life to kill. 

He lights the candelabra on the table with the barest  _ igni _ and leans closer to look over his broken face in the better light. 

His nose itself is setting nicely, thanks to his mutations, but both his eyes are black and swollen and it still  _ hurts _ even as the bruises fade towards poisonous yellow at the edges with healing. His entire skull still feels as though it’s been rung like a bell, his whole body a little hollow, as though if he was struck he would  _ echo _ . 

He needs answers. 

He dresses perfunctorily, not worrying about his leathers - it’s at least an hour till dawn, he’ll come back and change before training. He pulls on his breaches and a knit jumper, the cold of the night seeping into the Keep through the spaces between the stones. He slips on his boots but doesn’t bother to lace them, pulls his shaggy brown hair back just to keep it out of his eyes. 

He pauses at the door and listens. Below there are the sounds of movement - someone stoking the fire in the great hall, feeding the cooking fires and putting water on for tea, for porridge - sleepy, early morning sounds. Emboldened by the normalcy of the morning he steps into the hall. 

The library is dark and still at this early hour, wrapped in the muffled comfort of the smells of old paper and leather. He lights the fire in the large hearth with a careful  _ igni _ , sending shadows dancing over the walls, over the tall, intricately carved bookshelves that fill the room, stuffed with some of the rarest and most valuable tomes ever bound. The library is treated with a sort of reverence by every member of the School of the Wolf. Throughout their training an emphasis is placed on good record keeping and book learning, impressing upon the trainees that to know your enemy is to best it even before you face it. This approach places itself in contrast to the school of the Viper and Bear that train more for brute strength and physical cunning. This reverence for the written word and the knowledge of history makes the library at Kaer Morhen as close to a temple as any witcher school has ever had. 

Today though Eskel isn’t there to pour over political reportage from empires long gone or bedevil himself with poetry written in dead languages. He is tracking another witcher, on the hunt for a ghost.

He starts with the registry books.

Bound in thick black leather, the registry books hold a record of every trainee to pass through the gates of Kaer Morhen. Each name is meticulously organized beneath the names of the commanding master of the cohort, listed beside the date of conscription followed by date of death. Little black numbers containing whole lives in the spaces between them.

Cynically he finds the page for his own cohort -  _ Commanding Master: Vesemir Mroz. _

He runs his fingers down the list, twenty names in all, each with a face, a sense of humor with favorite foods and songs and stories they’d liked to tell in the darkness of the shared dormitory. Each and every one with a dream for a future they never got to see. All but forgotten now, only their names and the dates of their deaths left behind to show they’d lived at all. Only two names on the page do not have a date in the “decease” column; Geralt’s and his own, they the only two without closure to their chapters. 

He finds a Stefan close to the beginning of the second most recent book, on the page of a cohort brought in over 80 years ago. Stefan Cygan, trained in a cohort under the command of a Master Øsloff Pająk ,  his date of death listed as sometime near midsummer. Doing some quick math Eskel places it as the summer of Stefan's first year on the Path. There’s nothing remarkable about the listing, nothing to give any clue as to what caused his name to be whispered so cryptically behind closed doors, what he had to do with Geralt. 

There is only one name on this list left without a date of death, Cero de Stael. Eskel’s heart leaps. He can’t think of any other Ceros, it’s not exactly a common name. Maybe there’s an answer to be had after all. 

Lost as he is in his own mind he nearly misses Geralt, who appears, silent as a dream, from between the shelves. He’s fully dressed in his leathers as though expecting a fight, white hair unwashed, circles of exhaustion ringing his eyes. There’s a desperation to him - something starved and anxious and confused in the way he holds himself - as though he’s wrestling with a feeling he can’t quite put a name to _. _ He hasn’t slept, clearly, and Eskel feels guilty about it. There is a long moment during which they simply stare at each other across the table. Geralt meets his gaze, expression guarded. Eskel quietly puts the book away.

“I’m sorry,” Geralt says, at last. His voice is rough from disuse, dry and quiet as the wind in the leaves. But it’s  _ his _ voice; that beautiful scratchy baritone that he’s still growing into, the voice that Eskel could pick out whispering in a room full of screams. 

“W-what for?” he manages, at last, feeling as though he’s walking on a sheet of ice, as though one wrong step will send him crashing through and break all stability forever. 

“For your face and…” Geralt sighs, an animal sound, and closes his eyes as though the dim light of the fire is too bright suddenly. “For not being  _ him _ anymore" 

The words come down like a ton of rocks, like a landslide, burying Eskel so deeply under them that for a long moment he can’t breathe with the weight on his chest. 

“My face is fine” he says, once he finds his breath again, the rest of Geralt’s admission too raw and horrible to address. “You didn’t hurt me”

Geralt blinks at him, expression impassive in the dimness. 

“I really thought I was going to kill you,” he says after a moment. 

_ So did I  _ “but you didn’t. You wouldn’t”

Geralt just looks at him blankly, blinks, once, a million different sentiments in that barest gesture. Eskel longs to leap up from his seat at the table and take him into his arms. But he won’t,  _ can’t,  _ do that anymore - the touch unwelcome. He digs his nails into his thighs and meets Geralt’s gaze head-on. 

Suddenly, Geralt makes a wounded noise as though all of the air has been forced from his lungs, eyes darting wildly around the room, looking everywhere but at Eskel directly. “I can’t…” he says, half desperate with the need to be understood “I can’t …” 

Eskel gets the feeling that they’re tottering on the edge of an abyss, so close to something important but unwilling to look at it directly - this is something that needs to be talked  _ around _ . 

Geralt’s hands have started shaking again and the new pink scars of teeth marks stand out starkly against the paleness of his skin. Eskel’s heart breaks at the sight of them, at the thought of Geralt alone, biting at himself to stay quiet as he suffers. He should have been there ( _ selfish selfish selfish).  _

"There's something wrong with my head" Geralt admits, so quietly it's almost lost in the crackle of the fire, pressing his knuckles to his eyes as though to stave off tears, as though looking at Eskel is too much, too bright, like looking at the sun “I hurt you, I almost killed you, I  _ wanted  _ to kill you - I forget where I am, what I am, fuck, I don’t even know  _ who  _ I am half the time....” He trails off, wipes his mouth on the back of his hand, leaving behind a streak of red where his teeth have cut open his lips and  _ finally  _ meets Eskel’s gaze again. “You said once that witchers are always one misstep away from monsters - I think I’m far closer than that now” 

Eskel’s breath catches in his lungs. He’d said it, and he’d meant it at the time but not about Geralt - it has been the youth in him, angry at the hand he’d been dealt - never about Geralt.

“Whatever they did to you” He says, choking on his guilt “you’re not a monster Geralt - You’re not…”  _ I know you _ he thinks, nearly says before he realizes that he doesn’t know Geralt, not anymore. To love and to know are wildly different things. He’s seen the monster that sometimes wears Geralt’s face, felt the raw animal strength, the capability for violence. His faith falters.

“You’re right,” Geralt says “I’m a witcher,” He says it as though just realizing it, some kind of meaning loaded in the words that Eskel can’t quite seem to understand “I  _ kill _ monsters. Eskel I -” he bites his tongue before he can finish, something stealing the words from his mouth.

“I’m sorry” he finishes, repeats, something volatile and dangerous and  _ sad _ behind his eyes. 

Eskel’s heart breaks - shards of it embedding themselves like ice in his lungs, stealing his breath so he can’t even call out after Geralt as he walks away. 

\--------

Eskel corners Vesemir after lessons nearly ambushes the master witcher in the hallway outside the classrooms. 

“Who was Stefan?” he hisses, voice pitched low enough so the littles still milling about won’t hear. 

Vesemir simply blinks down at him but after so many years Eskel can read his expression like an open book. This one (barest downturn of the mouth, half a tick of an upturned brow) means he’s surprised.

“I heard you and Rennes last night” he barrels on, mentally digging in his heels, gritting his teeth against the incoming admonishment.

Standing up to Vesemir had always been something Geralt did, not him. By nature Eskel had always preferred to bend to authority, taking the path of least resistance, finding it the easiest way to be left alone, to be called  _ good  _ (and isn’t  _ good _ close enough to  _ loved? _ ) _.  _

After a long moment, Vesemir shrugs.

“Well, I suppose you’re owed at least that much,” he says gruffly “But not here” 

He leads them to the kitchen, empty of people in the hours between breakfast and lunch. There are loaves of bread rising beneath cloths on the sideboard, and a large pot of what will eventually become broth bubbles happily over the fire. The sunlight streams in through the low windows, honey-colored and slow, catching in the bunches of dried herbs hanging above the sideboard - rosemary, sage, peppers tied in a bristling bunch ready to be ground to powder - giving the room a comforting smell of sun-warmed dustiness. 

Vesemir takes a seat at the long worktable in the middle of the room and gestures for Eskel to do the same. He perches on a stool across the table from Vesemir, reminded as he does of the afternoons of his young childhood spent chopping vegetables for the evening meal, gathered around this same table with all his brothers under Vesemir’s same watchful eyes. But now it’s only him and Vesemir, the room seeming to echo with ghosts.

After a long moment, Vesemir sighs and begins to speak. He doesn’t look at Eskel as he does, simply watches the backs of his hands as he curls and uncurls them into fists against the tabletop, old scars shining in the light.

“Truthfully it’s not my story to tell. I was a decade on the Path by this point. Stefan was a member of Cero’s cohort, strong, brash, went through The Grasses as though it was nothing - walked out singing practically. There was a third trial - like Geralt’s- with the intention of it to create the perfect Witcher, so fast, so perceptive, extraordinarily agile, completely fearless. Stefan was chosen for the ease with which he completed the Grasses, the thinking being that he would be able to withstand this as well. He survived, thrived even, and for a time we thought it was working, that we’d cracked the formula, created the perfect Witcher. We sent him on the Path as we would anyone else.”

Vesemir pauses, clearly unsure how to continue. 

“What happened?” Eskel prompts, stomach in knots, seeing the inevitable conclusion and wishing he didn’t.

Vesemir sighs, splaying his hands on the tabletop, looking up to meet Eskel’s gaze for the first time “He... _ broke.  _ Something snapped in his head not even three weeks on the Path. He butchered an entire village, women, children and all.”

The weight of the past settles over the silent kitchen like a cloud. Eskel’s mouth goes dry. He knows that  _ snap, _ knows what it looks like, the loss of self, the uncontrollable violence. He swallows, clenches his hands into fists beneath the table so Vesemir doesn’t see them shake. 

“You left out the part where I was ordered to hunt down the love of my life and put him down like a dog,” Cero says from where he stands in the doorway, pulling the cork out of a bottle of vodka with his teeth. “Sadistic fuckers those mages”

“Your…?” 

Cero inclines his head, the scar tissue around his missing eye catching in the firelight, bloody and raw. He takes a long pull from the bottle and offers it to Eskel, who takes it gratefully. 

“I was getting there,” Vesemir says quietly, watching Eskel drink with a frown between his dark bushy eyebrows. “We swore up and down to never try anything like it again, but the mages insisted - they wanted to see if they could do it, properly this time”

“And Geralt…?” 

“Was the strongest trainee we’ve seen in decades. Even without the mutations, he was...is... _ special” _

The silence falls thickly again. Eskel’s thoughts and questions beating around his head like birds in a cage; too fast to grab hold of, too many to articulate _.  _

Abruptly Cero shakes himself and starts furiously banging around in the cupboards as though he can keep the ghosts at bay if he simply makes enough noise.

“What’s a man gotta do to get a cheese sandwich around here?”

“Put some cheese in some bread,” Vesemir says drily “Cheese isn’t in from the dairy yet, you’ll have to make do with butter” 

Cero opens his mouth to reply something scathing when there’s the sudden sound of shouting from outside and the kitchen door slams open hard enough to send it bouncing off the opposite wall with the force. There’s a burst of cold air carrying with it Geralt’s scent - and  _ blood _ so much blood. Eskel’s heart shudders to a stop in his chest. Three yearling boys stagger into the room holding a horribly familiar limp body between them. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Vesemir leap from the table, hears the stool clatter to the ground. 

“What in the names of the Gods happened?” 

“Crazy fucker tried to off himself.” one says, wide-eyed, covered in blood, shaking like a leaf “Cut his own damn throat”

They’ve laid Geralt on the floor just inside the kitchen door. He’s cradled in Vesemir’s arms his red hair fanning out over the flagged floor as their mentor holds his hands to Geralt’s neck. For a moment he thinks he’s made a mistake, that Geralt is himself again, that this is all just some kind of elaborate prank. 

The red in his hair is blood. 

The blood - Eskel can hear it, the deadly gush of it, the horrible wet splash of it falling against the floor even through Vesemir’s hands, pressed to the hemorrhage. Before he can truly think he grabs a stack of dishcloths from the basket on the table, falls to his knees beside Vesemir, presses the cloth to the wound. Geralt’s face is ash-pale beneath the blood, his heartbeat barely audible, each beat coming slower than the last.

_ No  _ he thinks, begs  _ not like this, not like this.  _

The smell of the blood is sickening and overwhelming - meaty, warm metal and life going to waste on the stones. It’s hot and thick beneath his hands, slimy, nearly black with how much of it there is. It pulses, gushes, each rush of it in time with the beat of Geralt’s heart. It’s like trying to hold back the ocean, something primal, not meant to be contained in two hands.

“You!” Cero snaps at one of the boys, falling to his knees on Geralt’s other side, broad hands covering Eskel’s to place more pressure on the wound. “Get Master Herondale,  _ quickly! _ You two! Get his legs” 

Vesemir is  _ shaking _ , when Eskel looks over to him, gaze gone a thousand miles away. Cero snaps beneath his nose, once, twice, businesslike, tense, terrified.

“You ready Ves? We gotta move him come on now. 1, 2, 3!” 

Eskel is pushed out of the way, loses contact with Geralt’s body as the masters roll him to his side, wound up, so they can hold it tighter, try and hold the endless gush of blood inside. The change in position jostles Geralt's arm, causes the knife to clatter from his limp hand onto the bloody floor. 

The knife...

The  _ silver  _ knife. 

_ Silver for monsters, Steel for men _

_ “I kill monsters”  _ he’d said, shaking in the library in the cold light of dawn “ _ I’m sorry” _

Eskel can feel the scream building in his throat, this horrible bloody-mouthed thing that threatens to tear out of his chest, this rushing of wings, this crumbling of the very foundations of his universe. He shakes with it, the guilt, the loss, the horror in redux. The scream builds inside him, blacks out his vision, strangles him, claws at him with its begging for him to just open his mouth and  _ let it out _ . 

But he doesn’t.

He bottles it up, chokes it down like medicine, buries it in the hollow place beneath his lungs somewhere with the rest - just like he was trained. 

\--------

Eskel runs the Gauntlet two, three, four, five, times. By the time he’s tired himself out the sky is long dark and he’s coughing up blood. His body feels like one big bruise, muscles overextended, bones bent and stressed beyond the limit of what they can bear. He limps back to the castle on sprained feet, wheezing through his abused lungs. 

He reenters the keep as quietly as he can. The littles are sleeping in their sprawling dormitory on the ground floor and he doesn’t want to wake them, knowing how hard they are to get back to sleep. He stops short at the staircase, remembering with a pang, his own first night at Kaer Morhen. 

_ It was all so cold, so unforgiving, all stone and stony-faced men and tales of monsters. He’d cried there in the dark amongst the soft breathing of twenty other boys, for the loss of his home, the loss of his mother, what he had assumed was the loss of his very life. And then there was Geralt, tiny, freckled, and red-headed, who had dried his eyes and crawled into bed beside him.  _

_ “It’s okay to be afraid” Geralt had told him, holding him close. Being in the circle of his spindly child’s arms, arms that barely reached all the way around his torso, was the safest Eskel had ever felt “If we were never scared we wouldn’t know what it was to be brave”  _

Eskel goes to Geralt’s room. 

Vesemir is sat in an armchair by the bed, his graying head bent, lips moving in something that may very well be prayer. The light from the fire plays out a bloody pantomime on the walls and ceiling. Geralt at least looks peaceful, the bandages at his throat stained a cherry red, the smell of blood and death pervasive in the tiny room. Geralt looks dead, ashy pale and still but then again he always looks dead now - he is, in Eskel’s mind, a corpse brought back to life.

The sound of the door closing startles Vesemir, Eskel can tell by the slight tensing of his shoulders. As though dreaming Eskel reaches out to take Geralt’s hand, clammy and grey where it rests against the coverlet, but suddenly finds he  _ can’t _ as though touching Geralt would make all of this more real somehow, and lets his hand drop to his side, useless. 

“If we are very lucky,” Vesemir says, not looking up “very lucky, He may come back to us, to himself. He just needs time” 

“How could you let them do this to him?”  _ to us _ . He’s surprised by how even his voice is, inside he is burning. At the injustice of it all, for Geralt, for himself, and for all of his brothers who would never see daylight again, all of his brothers who died screaming. 

Vesemir sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose, squinting his eyes as though reliving every horror he’d ever seen. 

“How do I let them do any of the things they do to you children?” He takes a swig from the wineskin in his hands, reels himself back from whatever precipice he'd found himself on the edge of. He shakes himself, looks at Eskel directly, something raw and open and in  _ pain _ beneath the usual steel-trap of his expression.

“Come here, trainee” he orders, softly “you need some Seal on that head wound, it looks nasty” 

Shocked, Eskel reaches up to his forehead. Sure enough, there’s a deep gash there, bleeding sluggishly. 

Vesemir beckons him over in his usual no-nonsense way, reaching to the low table beside Geralt’s bed for the little pot of pungent salve. Eskel goes, lets himself be pushed down onto the edge of Geralt’s bed, let’s the older witcher dab salve onto his wound. Vesemir’s fingers are cool against the feverish skin of his forehead, his touch firm at the back of his neck. His sword-calloused hands only dig tighter into his nape, holding him still as Eskel tries to jerk away from the blinding sting of the salve over the broken skin, hissing through his teeth. It’s like being a child again, a revisiting of some of his earliest and most enduring memories: Vesemir’s rough hands over broken bones, sliced skin, patching up injuries with a surly perfunctoriness that belied the care he always took to be  _ gentle _ . 

This is as much about Eskel’s head as it is about Vesemir’s heart, he realizes. The old master needing to pretend that he can fix the damage that’s been done as easily as a patch of split skin or a dislocated shoulder. Eskel doesn’t look his mentor in the eyes, gives them both the dignity of pretending no one saw him in this raw and open state. 

“There now” he says gruffly, once the salve has done its work “good as new."

He stands, rubbing a tired hand over his eyes, through his graying mane of hair, smoothing himself back together. When he meets Eskel’s eyes, his usual stonily impassive mask is back into place “I ought to go.”

Eskel shuffles to stand, taking it as a cue, every abused muscle in his body protesting the change in position. 

Vesemir only shakes his head, clasps his shoulder tightly. 

“Stay with him,” he says, jerking his greying head toward the chair he had just vacated “For both your sakes” 

For the first time in recent memory, Eskel stays. 

He curls up in the armchair, pillows his head on the arm. He’s barely able to fit, big as he’s gotten, but he needs the safety of feeling small somehow, the sensation of being held, of being  _ wanted. _

Geralt’s heartbeat is loud in the little room, each regular thump of it like a promise, the cadence of it as familiar as the answering echo of his own. 

\--------

A change in Geralt’s breath tears Eskel from his uneasy slumber. The fire has long burned to embers, the cool of the autumn night slinking into the room like a cat. 

Geralt is awake, his eyes open, expression raw in the dimness. In the dark his eyes glow like banked coals, a question in them, a relief. They watch each other for long moments, Eskel very nearly not breathing. Geralt is a thing of moonlight and dust in the darkness, something half-remembered, a body raised from the dead. 

After a time he reaches out, slowly, as though Geralt is a flighty animal, his own hand ghostly in the dimness. Geralt’s hair is soft as cobwebs under his fingers, pale as moonlight. He shudders at the contact, a full-body earthquake, and leans, almost imperceptibly, into Eskel’s touch, his eyes closing in something resembling pain. 

Eskel’s breath is stolen from his throat and his heart beats wildly, a trapped bird inside his chest, killing itself for freedom. He wants to haul Geralt to him, to hold him close and kiss the pained lines of his brow and feel his living heartbeat against his skin. But he knows, with an ache akin to dying, that to do so would ruin  _ whatever this is _ \- this delicate trust, this relearning of who they are to each other, of what it means to be alive.

They sleep again. Geralt curled up small against the pillows, Eskel in the chair with his fingers resting (gently so gently) on the warm, soft curve of Geralt’s cheek.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything will be okay, I promise!
> 
> The next chapter will probably be a while, but I hope this extra-long chapter will tide you over until then!
> 
> Notes on real-world canon: that is definitely not a medically accurate way to help staunch a cut carotid. I am but a humble art historian, not a doctor.
> 
> Notes on fic canon: Vesemir's last name is a Polish surname meaning "frost". 
> 
> Cero definitely lost his eye in the fight with Stefan but I didn't really think that was important to mention directly. 
> 
> My conception of how Kaer Morhen works: After you've been active on the Path for about 50 years Witchers are given the option of taking a sabbatical of sorts and coming home for about 7-15 years to look after a cohort of trainees/teach classes on their area of expertise. It's a bit of a break for the active Witchers and it keeps the pack well bonded. 
> 
> Thank you all for sticking with this, I appreciate everyone who so much as clicks on this fic!  
> Until next time!  
> \- C


	9. Stories Shared Between Fools

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "To love is to die of it"
> 
> CW/TW for brief body horror (nothing out of the ordinary for this fic, but just in case)

Geralt comes back into the world of the living on foals legs, gangly and unsure of his footing, blinking in the autumn sun. Eskel takes it upon himself to keep him from stumbling, sublimating the guilt in favor of being useful. He changes the bandages at Geralt’s throat, applies salves, removes stitches, coaxes the raw mouth of that gaping wound into a thinning scab then a scar - always careful not to touch the skin. Geralt silently bares his throat to his shaking fingers every time, a show of trust that nearly shatters Eskel’s resolve. 

They take walks, out along the walls to watch the sunset, down into the fields to pick the last of the autumn fruit - ripe-red and juicy. It dogs him all the same, the guilt, haunts him, he gets the feeling that he will be choking on it for the rest of his life. 

_ This is your fault, he tried to take his life because of you _ the nagging voice in his head reminds him, as he watches Geralt pluck an apple from a tree and bite into it, eyes closing in a funny sort of pleasure at the taste.  _ You broke the code and he was punished for it. _

Geralt raises a snow-pale eyebrow, clearly sensing his unease, teeth still buried in the flesh of the fruit. With a crunch, he bites down, chews, and offers the fruit to Eskel, the half-moon scar on his palm shining in the lavender and wine of the sunset. Eskel looks away, curls his hands into fists just to feel the bite of his nails, something catching in his throat. 

_ A Witcher’s life is a lone life - Witchers cannot love.  _

He’s guilty, but he’s also selfish and he knows, in the darkest slimiest corners of his soul, that he would do everything exactly the same if he was able to turn back time, that he would do any number of heinous things for just a moment more of Geralt in his arms. He’s guilty of being guilty, just as he’s guilty of not being guilty enough.

When the bandages finally come off, the jagged scar at Geralt’s throat stands out an angry red against the milk-paleness of his skin. He grows his white hair longer to cover it, pulls the necks of his woolen jumpers up higher, buries himself in scarves. Eskel wakes up shaking, feeling the ghost of the living pulse of Geralt’s blood rushing between his fingers. He wants to run screaming from it, to shake Geralt until his teeth rattle in his skull and make him promise _never again never again_. But they don’t talk about it. It hangs between them as one more unsaid thing, one more combined apology and confession that will never see the light of day. 

\--------

The mages return with the first frost; all spidery fingers and egg-white eyes, the greasy slithering of their low voices as they speak with Rennes raising the hair along Eskel’s arms, sending shivers up the back of his neck. The senior boys gather in pale-faced knots, lean together in shadowed corners, hold each other when they think no one can see. They brace themselves against the encroachment of oblivion by puffing out their chests and setting their jaws, by pretending to be brave. He aches for them, wants to tell them to run, run and never look back, to tell them that it’s not worth it, that no illusory greater good is worth what is about to be taken from them. He bites his tongue and pretends he doesn’t hear the echo of their terrified heartbeats. 

They are taken in the morning - down through the great hall, down into the darkness of the caverns beneath the keep. The stone down there is older, ancient, from long before the construction of the keep itself, a relic of long-buried power. Eskel hears the dull thud as the steel door shuts and locks behind them like the closing of a tomb. He thinks back to his own time in that room; the scent of terrified sweat and old death, the dry-mouthed panting of his brothers echoing loud, the soft jingle on the buckles as wrists and ankles were bound to tables. The spread-thin apprehension and the waiting had almost been worse than what would come after. 

The keep is eerily quiet throughout the day - everyone moving with incredible care as though tip-toeing around a bomb. It seems to echo, the calm before the storm, the silence before horror. Everyone on edge, waiting for it to begin.

The screaming begins at nightfall.

It starts as the groaning of men, low and delirious as though the pain is coming to them through a dream. Then, after hours, it shifts. A sudden shattering, an upward arpeggio into something high, terrified, juvenile. The pain so awful it breaks their voices, reverts them back to children, to their most basal selves. Eskel’s throat aches with the noise, with the desire to join in the screaming, with the memory of what it felt like when he did. 

He covers his head with his pillow and tries to muffle the sound, blinking blindly into the darkness of the mattress, eyes burning, throat constricted with the memories of his own half-forgotten horror. He wishes he could still cry. 

Around midnight there’s a knock on the door. 

“Yeah?” he says, miserably, hauling himself upright from where he had been pressed in the muffled space between the pillow and the mattress. 

Geralt stands in the darkness of the doorway, barefoot, in sleeping pants and a loose shirt, his amber eyes haunted. There’s a half-full bottle of vodka in one white-knuckled hand which he shakes in invitation, a grey and anguished pinch to his mouth. 

Wordlessly Eskel scoots over to give him room on the bed - he’d only been holding the space for Geralt anyway. 

Geralt fits into the empty space in the bed as he fits into the empty space in Eskel’s heart - two broken pieces fitting together into some kind of imperfect whole. The  _ rightness  _ of it aches. Geralt takes a pull from the bottle and passes it, wordlessly. Eskel pretends that he can taste Geralt’s lips on the rim, that the warmth that fills him is some other kind of warmth. They lean against each other, shoulder to shoulder, knee to knee, comfortable together like they had been as children - holding each other up, giving each other the strength to look into the dark. 

Every minute feels like an age, an age of pain with no relief. After a long while, Geralt rests his exhausted head on his shoulder, a grounding weight. Eskel presses a kiss to the crown of his head, the gesture half-dreamed, as natural as breathing; his hair soft against the gentle pressure of his lips. Geralt just curls up closer, holds him tighter, buries his face against his breastbone as though listening for his heartbeat.

They lean against each other in the darkness and listen as the screams slowly peter out into death-rattles with the cold light of morning. 

When Eskel wakes, stale mouthed and dry-eyed, Geralt is nowhere to be seen but his scent lingers; juniper, honey, and oakmoss. Eskel buries himself in the scent, the memory of Geralt’s warmth as though it’s something he gets to keep.

\--------

On the evening of the third day, they gather in the boneyard to burn the dead. 

There are five survivors this year, five boys who will wake, blinking, to find themselves emptier than they remembered. Who will get their eyes through the Trial of Dreams in the winter and move into the sunshine of spring blinded by the light. And next year there will be more, and more the next; always more bodies to burn, always more survivors, always that same emptiness of waking to a world where, for the first time, you’re alone. 

They gather in rings around the pyre, piled high with old wood, built in tiers for the bodies to be laid upon. The junior boys - now the senior boys Eskel realizes - create the first row, then the lower ranks all the way down to the bastion boys and the littles who mill about and giggle, awkward with the gravity of the situation, not quite old enough to be afraid of their own mortality. He and Geralt take a long-forgotten place near the walls - there by duty not by orders. 

The bodies are brought out of the basement chambers on stretchers by two trainee mages, white-faced and sick looking with the horror they’d just witnessed. One by one the bodies are brought up, shrouded in white sheets, so small and vulnerable in their stillness. 

The parade of bodies seems endless, every time he thinks  _ it has to be over now _ there’s another. Another white-wrapped corpse spat back from the mouth of hell, another boy who will never see daylight again.

Tired now, from three days awake, one of the trainee mages stumbles under his burden. The stretcher jostles, the shroud pulls back a little. The exposed limb is barely recognizable as an arm anymore - the skin is blistered black and torn open as though burned, the sharp nubs of pulverized bone visible through the wet pulp of meat and muscle. It’s like a butterfly removed from its chrysalis too soon, the body stalled in a half-finished state of change. 

One of the littles vomits at the sight and is thumped by another trainee for it. 

For the first time, Eskel is grateful they can’t see the faces of their dead. 

A gloved hand curls around his, leather-clad fingers wiggling their way in between his own. He doesn’t look at Geralt, nor at their joined hands, just holds on as tightly as he dares and lets the fear wash over him.

Master Holbrok, grey-faced and drawn, throws the first  _ igni _ \- sets alight the bodies of the boys he raised, trained and cared for, molds his expression into stone as he watches the first logs catch, the first plumes of flame shoot up into the sky. Eskel has the uncomfortable memory of the midsummer bonfire - the dancing flames, the laughter. Master Holbrok and his boys singing forgotten folk songs long into the grey of morning. 

The other masters throw their own signs, lending strength to the fire, strength to their brother. Soon enough It smells of burning flesh, the air raw with it. The tang of ash sits heavy at the back of his throat, a spice and burn he feels up into his sinuses. 

Rennes says a few words about duty and brotherhood and loss - words that get lost over the crackle of the pyre, the rushing of Eskel’s blood in his ears. Geralt’s hand in his is grounding, the warmth and solidity of his grip a kindness against his frayed nerves. He can only hope to provide a measure of that same safety. Absently he strokes his thumb over the leather-clad ridges of Geralt’s knuckles, the back of his hand. Geralt squeezes in return, a tender gesture, holding him together. 

_ I’m here _ . 

He doesn’t want to let go. 

Dinner is served though no one eats much; they primarily drink- or at least Eskel does. He curls up in the comfort of drunkenness and tries to pretend the back of his mouth doesn’t taste like ash. 

After dinner, he heads back out to the boneyard, to the slowly fading pyre. The light of it is bloody and red against the blue of the night. The ash is thick and the air seems to crackle with it, the sparks floating like fireflies into the endless star-dazzled expanse of the sky. He’s not alone he realizes after a moment, there’s a small boy standing by the fire, hunched into his body as though trying to hold himself together. 

It’s one of the littles, Eskel realizes. Lambert - red-headed biting Lambert - the bane of the instructors, who always holds himself with an iron core. That iron core is nowhere to be found tonight. For the first time, he looks his age, looks  _ young,  _ a normal eight-year-old terrified by the sudden realization of just how truly dark the world is, how many different types of horror lurk in the shadows behind the door. 

“So this is what it is, where it all ends up,” he says, looking sidelong at Eskel, brown eyes shadowed. 

“It doesn’t have to be” he replies, taking a swig from the bottle and offering it to the kid before thinking better of it and taking it back again. 

Lambert scoffs, ignoring his gaffe “cause your way is so much better” 

“It doesn’t have to be,” He says again, as much a true answer to the unasked question as it is a repetition to convince himself  _ maybe it won’t always hurt, maybe it won’t always feel like dying.  _

He wishes he were more like the kid at his age, that he could have seen through the bullshit of it all and actually had the backbone to express his displeasure. The only person who had ever believed blindly in the honor of all this suffering was Geralt - He’d always seemed to look at it like martyrdom, as though by suffering through pain they’d come out holy. Look where that had landed him.

“The world needs us,” he says, realizing how thin the excuse sounds, face hot in the light of a fire fueled by the burning bodies of his brothers “we serve a purpose.”

He’s trying to impart wisdom he’s not entirely sure he believes in anymore and Lambert isn’t buying any of it. 

“Like fuck” he growls in response, jamming his hands into his pockets, hunching his shoulders up close. 

There’s the edge of the abyss, he hears it this time, knows it, can slice himself open against it. It’s the same tone Geralt used in the library, the voice of a man tottering on the brink of his own extinction. He’s too young to feel this way. 

Eskel is too young to feel this  _ old.  _

At the end of the day, he hopes the kid makes it if only to see what he will become. 

\--------

The threat of the mountain looms ever nearer as the days grow ever shorter, ever colder. The threat of change is easier to face with Geralt by his side. They build bombs, brew potions, sharpen blades - pack away their lives into bite-sized pieces, small enough to carry with them. 

The night before the trial they sit up late in front of the fire in Geralt’s room, going over everything again and again as though the repetition can stave off morning; silver swords, steel swords, potions, bombs, twin sets of knives. They’re standing on a precipice, the knife's edge between the life they know and everything they’ve been trained for. Tomorrow they will climb the mountain as boys and descend as men - as full-fledged Witchers - if they descend at all (there have been years when no one has). 

It feels like a reckoning, like the last night on earth, everything unreal in the glittering firelight. They have no idea what they will face, what challenges the mages and the masters have dreamed up to test every facet of their training. It’s always different, designed each year to test the promise of individual and cohort combined, some horrors natural, some mage-made, all of them deadly. It’s the last hurdle, the last chance to prove themselves just as it is their last chance to die among friends. Eskel still isn’t sure which outcome he’d prefer. 

Geralt is building bombs; his white head bent over the little table in the corner, a concentrated frown in the set of his full mouth. He wears his hair pulled back in a knot at the base of his skull, baring the sharp lines of his cheekbone, kissed pink by the firelight. His gloved hands are careful, sure of themselves, as he measures out saltpeter, ghouls blood, sets the wick. One wrong move enough to blow them both to smithereens. 

Eskel, seated in the low armchair by the fire, can’t look past the beauty of it; the half-contained and measured power, the little wisp of hair that has come loose from its tie and dangles in front of Geralt’s face, the way he blows it out of his eyes, impatient, the jumping of the muscle in his jaw as he holds steady. The bestiary he snuck from the library lies forgotten in his lap. 

There it is again, that overwhelm, that thick-tongued love.

“Geralt I -” he starts but can’t decide quite how to finish.  _ I miss you, I love you, I don’t ever again want you farther away from me than I can touch. _

“Don’t” the other boy interrupts, looking up from his work, heartbreak glittering behind his amber eyes “Please don’t” 

Eskel doesn’t. He sits back instead, swallows his tongue, lets the silence ride. 

“You hate me,” Geralt says after a long moment, biting at the words as they leave his mouth as though to break them. The bomb lies forgotten on the table, the threat of oblivion.

The words take Eskel aback, send him staggering, loose in his footing suddenly. 

“I don’t”  _ I could never.  _

Geralt looks at him disbelievingly “But I  _ hurt  _ you” 

“Not in any way that matters!”  _ not like I’m hurting now  _

“Hurt is hurt is hurt,” says Geralt bitterly, casting up his gloved hands as though to throw something “I don’t think I know anything else anymore” 

There’s the sense of hurtling through space, falling towards earth trying to grab at any stability - all of it falling through his fingers like mist.

“I hurt you” he repeats, biting at his own lips to draw blood “and I’ll do it again, and again, and again until that’s all there is between us -  _ hurt  _ and bitterness and you  _ will _ hate me then” 

Eskel opens his mouth to respond, to rebut, but finds that all the air has left his lungs as though he’s been punched in the stomach.

“I couldn’t live like that Es - I wouldn’t survive you hating me, me hurting you again. You were right, we  _ can’t  _ have this, we have to get used to being alone…” he trails off, wipes blood from his mouth on his sleeve, meets Eskel’s gaze with his own broken  _ hurt _ expression.

He has no choice but to stand, to cross that impassible distance, to take Geralt in his arms. He holds him close, comfort and keeping both, even as his own heart breaks with what he knows is coming. 

“It was good though wasn’t it? For a moment” Geralt says, clutching at him blindly “ _ We _ were good.” 

“Geralt…” he doesn’t  _ plead _ , Witchers don’t plead, but the strangled gasp that comes out of his mouth is embarrassingly close to it. 

Geralt takes a shuddering breath, eyes screwed up against the pain, and presses his mouth to Eskel’s. 

It’s a desperate, aching thing, made all the sweeter for it being the last time. Eskel curls his fingers into Geralt’s jumper and kisses him back, tries to pour all the longing and love into the touch, tries to  _ take _ enough to last him for the rest of his life. Geralt's lips are fire-hot and bloody against his own, the taste of him familiar, sweeter than summer honey. Eskel melts into him, holds him as though to meld them into one body. They _fit_ , have always done, they are the surety of another body to lean on, the answer of another heartbeat in the darkness, the promise that there will always be someone who knows the darkest depths of their souls - someone who has seen all the ugliness and pain and hadn't run. 

It's dangerous, too dangerous.

To love is to die of it.

T hey both know, have always known, that neither of them would survive as these raw and loving things they make of each other - too volatile, too soft, too easily hurt. They are each other's weaknesses, something they can’t afford. 

The knowing doesn't make it hurt any less.

In the end, he doesn’t fight. He gives Geralt what he wants, wraps the sharp and shattered pieces of his heart up into a little ball and swallows it, gives up, lets go. 

“Alright,” he says when they finally break apart, whispers really, Geralt so close to him that speaking normally feels like shouting. It feels like cutting off his own arm, like swallowing glass - as though if he were to open his mouth to say anything else all that would come out would be blood. If even Geralt doesn’t want him then… then…  _ what then? _

_ A Witcher’s life is a lone life, _ the voice in his head reminds him  _ to love is to die of it. _

They stand there for a short eternity, wrapped in each other; foreheads pressed together, Geralt’s cold hands shivering like birds where they rest, so gently, against the curve of Eskel’s cheek, the sharp cut of his jaw. He holds him as though he’s something to be treasured, as though he might break.

“There’ll be others,” He says it almost like a question, as though he wonders if it’s true “for both of us” 

Eskel shakes his head, feeling like a child and hating himself for it.  _ Only ever you.  _

“Someday…?” it’s a promise, a demand, a desperate entreaty. He buries his face in the soft hollow of Geralt’s throat, right against the scar - that reminder of what happens when they let themselves hold each other too close - and breathes in the scent of him; honey, oakmoss, juniper, tries to commit it to memory.  _ Come back to me, come back _ . 

“Someday…” Geralt echoes, eyes screwed up against the pain of it. “Yeah, someday”

They just have to get there first.

“I should go,” he says, at last, pulling away from that last embrace. There’s something numbing about it; like cauterizing an open wound. The hole is still there - the massive gaping emptiness right through the core of him - but he can see clearly now, no longer dizzy from the blood loss, the wound not life-threatening anymore. 

He turns to go, dry-eyed, choking on it, cold where the heat of Geralt’s body had been. The darkness of the hallway, the distance to his bedroom door seems an endless leap of faith into the void. 

“To the mountain in the morning?” Geralt says, questioning, catching him in the doorway.

He’s standing by the fire, hair gone red in the light of it. There’s an echo of tears in his expression, something torn-open and childlike in the set of his shoulders. There’s pain there yes but beneath it a steely resolve. 

This is necessary, this is right, there was never any other way. 

“To the mountain in the morning” Eskel echoes and closes the door behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's TRIAL TIME my guys!!!!  
> Catch you on the flip side for some badassery, actual monster fighting, and even more feelings.

**Author's Note:**

> I can, as always be reached on [tumblr](https://scylla-rammshorn.tumblr.com/)


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